finished
The Sound of Waves
Rating: ★★★★★
the whole time i was reading this i was thinking “this is great and beautiful but its as if mishima wrote a kids story” but then the last line is where mishima wakes up. it makes me feel like this is not a love story between shinju and hatsuwhatever but a story of admiration from mishima to shinji. the last line emphasizing that power and passion, whether from love or otherwise, does not come from the externalities including even the subjects of that love, but from within. a man in love with no internal power is weak, yasuo. it makes me feel like mishima sees love as a fruit that can only be borne from a strong tree. i like that message a lot. overall great book. i like many aspects of mishima and this book covers many of them.
The Razor’s Edge
Rating: ★★★★☆
maugham is honestly a modern day western european tolstoy. this book feels very similar to anna karenina. i loved the depth each character had. it was really fun to watch isabel become the “villain” of sorts with her relentless control over larry to the point of killing the only woman he would have been willing to marry. the parts i did not like so much were minimal but left a bad taste. larry’s healing properties. i didnt really get it. was it meant to be a play on jesus or something? i mean maugham makes that reference later in the book with sophie being mary but i dont think it fit very well. i also did not really understand larrys tangent on buddhism. ill give credit that his framing of and choice around buddhism being the only religion that tells the believer to seek salvation in themselves makes a lot of sense. his conclusion that he didnt want enlightenment as he would take any life over nothingness was also very real. i just wish larrys conclusion was less mystical and more grounded. also when i got to that chapter maugham being like “yeah you can skip this chapter but its the whole reason i wrote this book” what a troll. overall great book. maugham is definitely shaping up to be one of my favorites.
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Demon Copperhead
Rating: ★★★☆☆
this book reminded me a lot of the grapes of wrath. whereas the grapes of wrath portrays a family slowly attrited demon copperhead goes the opposite direction. starting with no functional family damon must go out into the world and fight for himself, eventually finding people he could call family. the bluntness of the deaths was staggering but realistic. the portrayal of addition felt like watching a car crash happen in slow motion. most of the themes brought up were consistent throughout the book. i was not a big fan of how a lot of the “torture” felt forced and self indulgent. also the ending felt a bit too perfect. i felt it ran too long and would be much better if it was about half the length. otherwise a great book.
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The Remains of the Day
Rating: ★★★★☆
i know the book is supposed to be about the tragedy in closing yourself off to the world and living in a selfmade prison and the bittersweet comfort of at least having the “remains of the day” to live honestly but the main takeaway i got was dont be too autistic. on a more serious note, the key takeaway for me was how obvious and prisonlike a protective framework may be but it will still be chosen over the fear of freedom. when stevens father dies, he goes straight back to work, with tears in his eyes. his father also struggled with this. hes adamant about working even when sick. to the last moment he asks stevens “is everything under control?” in reference to the important event rather than his own health. the fortress begins to crack as he asks whether he was a good father but his sons fortress is still well defended and he gets nothing in return. darlington being a bad figure just adds to the overall regret and ridiculousness of the fortress. the entire story of dignity falls apart. speaking of dignity, its interesting how all the anecdotes on dignity just map to unfeeling or stoicness. miss kentons involvement in all this is obvious. she is the most regular attacker of his fortress and the one who got closest to getting through. stevens subconscious wanted her to succeed but his guard was always up too high. the realization at the end that it was all for naught is too strong for him and he goes back to butlering with the takeaway that he needs to banter more.
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Family Happiness and Other Stories
Rating: ★★★☆☆
i had read lots of tolstoy before this: anna karenina, war and peace, the death of ivan illych, and more. i always put tolstoy amongst my top 5 writers. part of it was that his books were among the first few i read when i seriously picked up reading. the other parts were that he was easy to read, engaging, had similar philosophical leanings, and really understood the human condition in so many different facets. when i started reading family happiness i was honestly a bit disappointed. was this the author i held in such high regard? the prose was very simple, the plot line was not much different, it felt very similar to his other works, and the age gap relationship was something i was tired of seeing from tolstoy. despite all this the book was short enough where i was willing to give it a good shot. and im glad i did. the points i mentioned above all stayed true, but the value came from the development of the relationship. in tolstoys longer works many relationships are idyllic, and have happy endings. this is fine if youre self inserting or if you get your value out of second hand enjoyment but if you want to learn something you get absolutely nothing and it sets up unrealistic expectations. obviously not all relationships in his longer books ended like that, but the people i found to be tolstoys self inserts always had happy endings. family happiness does not do this. it starts out idyllic, the honeymoon phase, and then degenerates into realistic qualms and conflicts. the value difference of city versus country life is most in the foreground but it covers a lot of the other deeper value differences. seeing things play out the way they did was not pleasant of course but how it ends is realistic and honest. it is bittersweet but leaning more towards the bitter. it captures a sense of loss that is much more difficult to make legible. i didnt like how supercilious the husband was acting as well so i guess it wasnt just the wife. overall i thought it was a valuable read.
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Of Human Bondage
Rating: ★★★★★
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First Love
Rating: ★★★☆☆
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No One Writes Back
Rating: ★★★★☆
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The Republic
Rating: ★★★★★
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To Build a Fire
Rating: ★★★☆☆
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War Is a Racket
Rating: ★★★★☆
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The Grapes of Wrath
Rating: ★★★★★
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The Castle
Rating: ★★★★☆
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The Fall (Vintage International)
Rating: ★★★★☆
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The Magic Mountain
Rating: ★★★★☆
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The Prophet
Rating: ★★★☆☆
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East of Eden
Rating: ★★★★★
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Kafka on the Shore
Rating: ★★★☆☆
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Norwegian Wood
Rating: ★★★★☆
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Growth of the Soil
Rating: ★★★★★
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In Cold Blood
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
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Into the Wild
Rating: ★★★☆☆
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The Alchemist
Rating: ★★★☆☆
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The Giver (Giver, #1)
Rating: ★★★☆☆
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The Most Dangerous Game
Rating: ★★★☆☆
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The Odyssey
Rating: ★★★★☆
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White Nights
Rating: ★★★☆☆
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Augustus
Rating: ★★★★☆
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Butcher's Crossing
Rating: ★★★★★
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The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
Rating: ★★★☆☆
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The Tartar Steppe
Rating: ★★★★★
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Brave New World
Rating: ★★★★★
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Crime and Punishment
Rating: ★★★★★
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A Farewell to Arms
Rating: ★★★★☆
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A Short History of Nearly Everything
Rating: ★★★☆☆
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No Longer Human
Rating: ★★★☆☆
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Siddhartha
Rating: ★★★★☆
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The Great Gatsby
Rating: ★★★☆☆
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The Invisible Man
Rating: ★★★★☆
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The Old Man and the Sea
Rating: ★★★★☆
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Slaughterhouse-Five
Rating: ★★★★☆
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War and Peace
Rating: ★★★★☆
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1984
Rating: ★★★★☆
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Animal Farm
Rating: ★★★★☆
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Assassin's Apprentice (Farseer Trilogy, #1)
Rating: ★★★★☆
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Chess Story
Rating: ★★★★☆
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Enchiridion
Rating: ★★★★★
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Ender’s Game (Ender's Saga, #1)
Rating: ★★★★☆
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Fahrenheit 451
Rating: ★★★★☆
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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1)
Rating: ★★★★☆
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Hunger
Rating: ★★★★☆
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In the Penal Colony
Rating: ★★★☆☆
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Man's Search for Meaning
Rating: ★★★★☆
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Meditations
Rating: ★★★★☆
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Pride and Prejudice
Rating: ★★★★☆
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The Brothers Karamazov
Rating: ★★★★★
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The Catcher in the Rye
Rating: ★★★☆☆
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Rating: ★★★★☆
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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)
Rating: ★★★☆☆
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The Kreutzer Sonata
Rating: ★★★★☆
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The Metamorphosis
Rating: ★★★★★
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The Outsiders
Rating: ★★★★☆
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The Stranger
Rating: ★★★★☆
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To Kill a Mockingbird
Rating: ★★★★☆
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Stoner
Rating: ★★★★★
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Anna Karenina
Rating: ★★★★★
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The Death of Ivan Ilych
Rating: ★★★★★
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Flowers for Algernon
Rating: ★★★★☆
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Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1)
Rating: ★★★★☆
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to read
Shantaram
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Walden or, Life in the Woods
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Roadside Picnic
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Mysteries
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Pan
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The Snow Leopard
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Tao Te Ching
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The Technological Society
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The Book of Monelle
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A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There
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The Picture of Dorian Gray
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Catch-22
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Moby-Dick or, The Whale
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Notes from Underground
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The Idiot
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