The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Oh how I love this book. Wilde is able to make a scene come to life like no other writer of his day, a power uniquely suitable to the written word. As a playwright, this is his only novel, and what a novel. This is a book that is indeed "poisonous", a direct challenge to our morality. Witty, sharp, disturbing... This is a book that engages, makes one ask questions about previously unquestioned ethical principles. It remains as scandalous today as the day it was released to a shocked England. I cannot imagine a time when The Picture of Dorian Gray loses it's power to simultaneously hypnotize us with florescence while repelling us in the protagonists compelling fall (or was it a rise?) into narcissism.



Oscar Wilde's most famous quote is that "all art is quite useless", and I think this quote should be given some thought before one begins.



What is meant by useless? Useless as in didactic literature? No, that won't do because some of the canon is infused with what once gave instruction and now gives pleasure.



What is meant by art? From a man considered to be an immoral hedonistic dandy, one might imagine that to Oscar Wilde life was art. Perhaps this gives some understanding of his death-bed conversion. What a depressing thought though, because this is a work that makes no apologies, a work that flows as if called from the muse of old, a work that dominates the imagination like nothing else.



Dive in to this masterwork, because anything less than a plunge may give one cold feet.



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The Demon-Haunted World: Science as Candle in the Dark

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


As an introduction to clear, rational, scientific thinking, The Demon-Haunted World succeeds. As an exploration of one man's passion for the scientific search for understanding, only Richard Dawkins The Greatest Show on Earth is comparable. Clearly presented here is a staple of rational inquiry; 'Occam's Razor', a theory of parsimony that can be applied to critical thinking in general, showing that the scientific method has application beyond laboratory use.



Sagan fascinates with his exploration of the roots of "Ufology", which he presents as a case of the hyperactive minds of our species infused with Cold War paranoia. The famous astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson once remarked humorously on the logical leap made by a hypothetical observer of mysterious aerial phenomenon. He pointed out that this observer first must admit that he has almost no understanding of said phenomenon, and promptly proceeds based upon ignorance that it must be alien technology. "Hey, this is beyond my comprehension and I have no idea what this is, ergo alien spacecraft!" The influence of Hollywood cannot be said to be absent in this blatant violation of Occam's Razor.



I feel the overused and often arrogant cliche, namely that "this book should be a part of the education of every child" is going just a bit too far. I will take a step back and say that this is a book that I would insist my children would read. Critical thinking is a tool that is not stressed with the vigor that it's historical effectiveness demands, and Sagan's Demon-Haunted World is as good a light introduction as I have read.



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Animal Farm

Animal Farm by George Orwell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


It's extremely difficult to find anything original to say about Orwell, so I won't make the attempt. The strong allegory of Animal Farm might tend to make one forget that this novella works marvelously as a "fairy tale". The power of Animal Farm lies in the vertiginous juxtaposition between the child's tale and the tale of dystopian totalitarianism. I have read that some find the story to be very funny, but I can find only very dark humor in the story rising to a crescendo of uncanny dread as I turn the last pages.



The animals think they are human. The men think they are gods.



Powerful, disturbing, and above all a vitally important literary landmark that summarizes the psychology of the Red Revolution with a succinctness that is hard to fathom surpassing, Animal Farm is genius from the socially conscious master George Orwell. Not to be missed.



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Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Leo Tolstoy said that Russians don't write novels, at least not in the European sense of the term, and then sought to create the Russian form. A master craftsman who reworked Anna Karenina several times in the course its composition, Tolstoy's impact with Anna Karenina is much more than aristocratic romance.

Anna Karenina is a study in contrast, two books in one. A tragedy and a comedy mirroring one another. Some of the most powerful feelings are evoked by this amazing epic. There seems to me to be something very ancient about the story of Mrs. Karenina. Tolstoy explicitly denied that this was a morality tale, but it is impossible to suppress the feeling that the unique Christianity Tolstoy evinced was not a very large factor in guiding his hand. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin crudely dropped the Christianity, and praised the novel for the comic half in which Konstantin Levin shows redemption through a proto-socialist work ethic.

I found the story of Anna to be less interesting than the story of Levin. The romance between Kitty and Levin is delicate and strained which tended to make Anna seem all the more unhinged (and at times flat-out obnoxious) by the power of Eros. The highest emotional point in this book, however, is the relationship between Anna and her son. I felt the struggle she was under, the feeling of being torn between duty and passion, and Anna became elevated to near-mythic status.

Tolstoy is the master of emotional realism, creating characters that are more real, and have feelings that are more real than reality. As far as technical craftsmanship is concerned, Anna Karenina is a lesson in the form of the realist novel.


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Pixies and the Art of Genius

Manta Ray - Pixies
The quintessential Pixies song, if there can be such a thing(hint: there can't be). It begins with Frank, letting you know who is in charge. Kim is second with the thumping metronomic bass. By the third line, you know this will not be handed to you: "trek across the space". It will be fun, something to do with alien abduction paranoia presumably.

Oo-Oo Oo-Oo Yeah!

At 17 seconds, some neurotic sounding humming, which leads to a ripping guitar in the middle of the second stanza.

He has no memory,
Of flyers in the night!

We are now in the presence of general insanity, and if that isn't to your tastes, now would be a good time to quit.

They went away!

Who went away? Who Frank, who? Where did they come from? Where are they going to? I need to know, I need to know, I need to know!!! Make them come back, sir. I would like to meet them please. Or maybe I don't. I just don't know anymore Mr. Francis, or is it Mr. Black? So many unanswered questions.

Police they say,
My mother too,
A fish from ocean blue,
above my head at night.

As always, with Pixies we are left with more questions than answers, and this my friend is one sign that the art we are enjoying is a masterwork. Either that or we are enjoying an LSD trip. Go split the difference. Pixies are neither overly nor overtly complex. This is a good sign. Here we are dealing with a simple expression of delusional thinking, a very good sign indeed.

Certifiably genius.

Alright!

Camus: a study

Camus: A Study by Brian Masters

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Camus: a study is a clearly expressed exploration of the work of Camus, albeit remarkable for its narrowness of scope. Very little in the way of Camus's philisophical and literary influences are presented, but Masters succeeds in fleshing out some of the key ideas expressed in the major works and presents a very positive view of a man displaying both moral courage and optimism (in spite of being incorrectly labelled an existentialist or even a nihilist). This short study whets the appetite for further exploration, which is to say it leaves something to be desired; fair treatment of the sensitive absurdist is not among these. Camus: a study serves as an excellent primer for Camus's literary and philosophical output.



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One Hundred Years of Solitude

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a giant of literature. His first novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude has been called the Don Quixote of Latin America. It has been praised as breathing new life into the form, and ushered into art the form dubbed "magic realism" further mastered by Salman Rushdie.



One Hundred Years of Solitude chronicles seven generations of the Beundia family, founders of the fictional Columbian village of Macondo. In crisply descriptive and florid prose, Marquez succeeds in making us care for the deadly women of the family Beundia. This novel starts out somber, foreboding, with one of the most memorable opening sentences in all of modern literature:



"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Beundia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."



From that moment on, we are immersed in a world where our causal empirical conceptions are toyed with, keeping us on edge with many wonderful reality-bending suprises. This is a novel in the form of the 19th century masterpieces of English prose, with the steady beat of Latin American mythology infused with Catholic iconology. The result is like nothing seen before, while retaining the ingredients of the best of our poetic tradition.



One Hundred Years of Solitude is a modern epic, one that attempts to create the indescribable sound of our connection with reality ripping through to new worlds, and centuries collapsing into milliseconds. Relentless, largely narrative based, skip this tremendous work at your loss.



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