Friday 23 December 2016

The Monthly Ledger: December 2016

Hey there!

As the year draws to a close, I'd definitely conclude that this year, though I read very few books, I read some of the most influential ones. I'm done with my first year in IB and will be starting the second one in January 2017! We've still 9 days to 2017 but I've got the next year jam-packed to the minute! Tons of homework to complete, quality time with family and friends but most importantly, the prodigious International Baccalaureate Exams! These exams will decide whether universities will accept me, whether I will get a worthwhile job and whether my parents will disown me or not! 2017 is going to be a year of collective indecisiveness, hard work, failures, successes and most importantly, a lot of tears.

2016 has been a mixed year of successes and failures. I got my ICE Certificate in March (Distinction!), continuously did bad in Math HL ever since, participated in my first ever MUN conference, participated in HMUN, learned calligraphy, did my own science experiments, wrote an 800-word Audenesque poem, a fashion article set in the 1920s but most importantly, learned a lot.

Well, enough with the talking! Here's a list of a few memorable books I read in this year (I may have missed a few):

1) Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Lahiri

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A decent book. A collection of short stories about Bengali families living in the US and how the immigrants' children grow, not as Bengalis, but Americans. A few stories were good but my favourite was the last one, Hema and Kaushik. My least favourite was 'A Choice of Accomodations' since I didn't quite get the point of it all.

I felt that I could relate to some of the characters in this book. Having moved to India from Singapore, lectures reminding me the importance of culture are not uncommon in my family. I strongly believe in culture and think it is essential to practice one's culture because as a human being, we have an innate need for a unique identity. While I don't mean to insult modernization, I do find it to be slightly generic and dull.

Rating: 3/5





2) The Kite Runner and And The Mountains Echoed - Khaled Hosseini

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Well what can I say? I am incredibly glad to have read A Thousand Splendid Suns and incredibly glad to have a teacher recommend me this author. Hosseini is an amazing storyteller, needless to say, and his books ravage the reader's very soul. The Kite Runner was immensely heart-wrenching and shocking and written in a very entertaining style. A book that stays with you longer after you finish reading.

However, I felt rather disappointed with 'And the Mountains Echoed'. Though I understand Hosseini was experimenting with a new writing style (it consists of nine chapters, each told from a different perspective), I couldn't connect with the characters personally and I was annoyed with a few. I liked the perspective of Abdullah and wanted to read more about him but it wasn't long before Hosseini shifted to another character's perspective. Hosseini didn't just leap from perspective to perspective but also across generations and time, which left me very confused and exasperated. This book didn't have the natural rhythm to it that Hosseini's previous books had. A book you're glad you finished reading. 

The Kite Runner: 5/5
And The Mountains Echoed: 2/5

3) Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

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*Accidentally watches the movie for two and a half hours*

And I'm back!

A peaceful book. The kind you realize you've learned so much only after you've finished the book. It's rather gross in some parts, because the protagonist, Chiyo (later renamed Nitta Sayuri) loves a man around 20 years older than her. 

Regardless, it's beautiful. It's culturally very rich, especially considering the fact that this is the first book I've ever read about Japanese culture. A geisha's lifestyle is poignantly portrayed, and I deeply admire the lengths to which a geisha can go to save her reputation, beauty and her danna. From the outside, I felt like geisha were "royalty" of sorts, what with their skill, grace and the money that's bestowed upon them by their customers. However, it's only later in the book that I realized that geisha are not really as gifted as the appear - Mameha says, "We do not become Geisha to pursue our own destinies. We become Geisha because we have no other choice. "

As a reader, I could see Chiyo mature through the pages and her determination to meet the love of her life again is very impressive. Towards the end of the book, Golden shows us a changed geisha district: Americans, having now won the war against Japan, are now strolling through 'sacred' geisha districts, loud and raucous. I would say this part infuriated me the most: I absolutely despised the way Americans disrespected geisha - the begin to ask for sexual favours, something geisha believe is beneath them and is the utter insult to their profession, for a geisha sells her skills, not her body.
I also felt that some parts of the book were rather slow and unnecessary. 

Another favourite line from Mameha: "Remember, Chiyo, geisha are not courtesans. And we are not wives. We sell our skills, not our bodies. We create another secret world, a place only of beauty. The very word "geisha" means artist and to be a geisha is to be judged as a moving work of art."

Rating: 4/5

Well, since I'm rather out of time, I'll be listing all the books for now and updating this post later.
  • The Girl Who Played With Fire, Steig Larsson
  • A Clash of Kings, George R.R. Martin
  • Island of the Blue Dolphins, Scott O'Dell
  • The Silver Star, Jeannette Walls,
  • Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
  • Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, by J. K. Rowling, Jack Thorne, John Tiffany
  • Stardust, Neil Gaiman
  • Fatherhood, Bill Cosby
  • The Rose and the Dagger, Renee Ahdieh
  • And many more I can't remember!
Goodbye!

Friday 4 November 2016

Sophie's World, by Jostein Gaarder

Hello everyone!

I deeply apologize for not having posted something in a very long time. I have been rather preoccupied with IB (for all those who don't know, I am doing the IB program - perhaps I'll post something on that topic later on) but that doesn't mean I've given up on my books! A few books I read these past (frightening) months were Memoirs of a Geisha, A Court of Mist and Fury, The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stardust (Neil Gaiman) and a few more. From now on, I plan on posting a 'Monthly Ledger' of all the 'bibliophilic' events in my life, starting with today! Vamos, let's delve into October!


Presenting....

Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder

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This was a book my Theory of Knowledge teacher had suggested way back in the beginning of my IB program. (TOK is a subject focusing on philosophy - and its history - and aims to develop critical thinking skills. In addition, you also develop the art of  - forgive me - 'bullshitting' - through essays. But I personally find TOK an amazing subject to discuss about. It's definitely one of my most favourite IB classes).

I digress, as always.

Moving on, Sophie's World's is a story revolving around 14-year-old Norwegian teenager (on the threshold of 15) Sophie Amundsun, who begins to get mysterious letters from a man. The contents of these letters concern something dynamic and gruesome: the history of philosophy. As the novel progresses, Sophie begins to get letters from her 'philosophy teacher' and eventually meets him: her a philosophy teacher - Alberto Knox - is a middle-aged man with a blue beret and a little apartment of priceless possessions over the ages: from the Dutch philosopher Spinoza's optical glass lenses to the first edition of a book of Descartes' philosophical essays published in 1637, of which the very famous Discourse on Method originally appeared. As Alberto and Sophie advance through the ages, they learn about about everyone from Socrates (the very first Greek 'philosopher' in the world) to Sartre ( a French philosopher, one of the last notable ones of the last century). They learn about dualism, pantheism, existentialism, romanticism, nihilism, neoplatonism, Platonism, feminism, capitalism, communism, socialism, egoism, empiricism, rationalism, Hegelism, idealism, materialism, pluralism, skepticism, stoicism, sophism and together with them, so did I. The more Sophie learns, the more she realizes that her world is....imaginary. No, not in some artistic, rhetorical sense but literally. She and Alberto Knox use the techniques of various philosophers and come to understand that they are the mere figments of the imagination of Major Albert Knag, a Norwegian UN officer fighting on the war-front in Lebanon. They were being toyed around as a surprise for Major Albert Knag's daughter, Hilde's, birthday. Literally. How they escape the clutches of the Major forms the rest of the plot.

Comments:

A good book, but only if you have a lot of time in your hands. Reading it in one week, like I did due to time constraints, is not a very good idea, since this book requires even you to put your thoughts into it. Moreover, I got rather annoyed towards the end of the book because I was engrossed in the mystery of the Major more than the the history of philosophy and I wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. Sometimes, I wish Alberto weren't so mysterious too, what with his ambiguous wording and all-knowing persona.

On the upside, Jostein Gaarder is an amazing storyteller - he explains every major philosophy with such simplicity, without betraying their sheer importance. There are a multitude of examples for each and unlike Wikipedia pages, he narrates philosophy like a story, each philosopher gradually folding into another and another and another and so on.

Quick Quotes Quill:

"The universe is a great mystery"

Concerning Romanticists: "This yearning for something distant and unattainable was characteristic of the Romantics. They longed for bygones eras, such as the Middle Ages, which now became enthusiastically reappraised after the Enlightenment's negative evaluation. And they longed for distant cultures like the Orient with its mysticism. Or else they would feel drawn to Night, to Twilight, to old ruins and the supernatural. They were preoccupied with that we usually refer to as the dark side of life, or the murky, uncanny and mystical."

How similar is this to the teenagers of today! A few notable Romanticists and their work: The Sorrows of the Young Werther by Goethe, 1774; She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron; Heinrich von Ofterdingen by Novalis, 1801 (unfinished). Most Romantics died young, either due to tuberculosis or suicide, the latter of which was rising in Europe because unrequited love was becoming a popular concept. However, though Romanticism concerned majorly of romantic love, it also concerned the synthesis of philosophy, nature study and poetry. They believed the world and its people are one (world spirit) and that nature is a living, thriving organism. "Sitting in your attic dashing off inspired verses and investigating the life of plants or the composition of rocks were only two sides of the same coin because nature is not a dead mechanism, it is one living world spirit". Perhaps it is because of thoughts like these that most Romanticists either died young or grew up and became anti-Romantic and conservationist. Popular Romantics included Beethoven, Hans Christian Anderson, Brothers Grimm and Schelling.

Two more quotes which I absolutely loved and have truly experienced:

"The fairy tale gave the writer free rein to exploit his "universe-imagination" [universe-creating refers to God]. And even the creative act was not always completely conscious. The writer could experience that his story was being written by some innate force. He could practically be in a hypnotic trance while he wrote". "

[On the breaking of the barrier between the conscious and the subconscious] "All artists are aware of that. But then suddenly it's as if all the doors and all drawers fly open. Everything comes tumbling out by itself, and we can find all the words and images we need. This is when we have"lifted the lid" of the unconscious. We can call it inspiration, Sophie. It feels as if what we are drawing or writing  is coming from some outside source. "

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And I'd like to day goodbye with one last thought:


Image result for sophie's world quotes how terribly sad it is that people are made in such a way that get used to something as extraordinary as living

Tuesday 13 September 2016

Corro, let me run!

Another dramatic episode of cognitive chaos. 

These walls drive me crazy,
there's hate spewing everywhere,
stop with the proverbs and mindless advice,
no, they're getting me nowhere!

I need to run,
run, run, far from this burning hell.
Every step resounds with hatred and fury,
annoyed by ignorance, inaction and the futility of things.

Presente, preterite presente compuesto,
sweet jesus!
Run, run, to someplace away,
stay away and never come back.

Are these people cruel?
Are humans ignorant?
Must I feel blessed to be born in this damned species?
Must I stay with them forever?

Run, run, corro, let me run
to Hang Son Doong,
to the Islands of the Caribbean,
to the Amazonian forests,
I don't know, just let me go.

Sri Chinmoy, you're wrong,
Anger can destroy peace,
not the other way around.

Ugh, I'm suffocated,
Anger - stop eating me!
He clouds my thought, my senses and reason,
I can't think anymore, I'm exploding.

Lord, what's wrong?
Is it me or the world?
There's so much fury boiling inside me,
but who is it I hate - the world or me?

No, stop telling me this world is kind!
It's broken, spoiled and filled with malice.
Arabs, Jews, Africans suffering,
and I've been told learning past perfect will fix this world!

My mind's a tangle of webs,
and I think about the greater good and troubles,
must I think about the world so much,
for the most intimidating thing that could happen to me,
is going past the deadlines.

Ugh, the futility of everything terrorizes me,
Humans, you have brought unto thyself doom,
the futility of this poem manifests as hatred,
I'm grasping at fraying ends of inspiration, but for whom?

*A terrible poem, with terrible words and a terrible rhyme scheme. But dear reader, do understand that I want to publish the original, unedited version of the poem.

Friday 19 August 2016

Descriptive: Art of the Heavens

A descriptive I wrote while I was practicing for my IGCSE exams. Enjoy!


Argh! With one last growl of effort, I pushed aside the thick leafy branch that struck out into my face, and leapt out onto the last brown branch of the tree, the zenith of my arduous climb. I did it!

I have scaled Old Gaia, the tallest conifer, evergreen call it, in our lush, springtime neighborhood. Joy bubbled in me like an effervescent potion.

I was standing with closed eyes, with one leg upon the topmost, spindly branch of the corner and another leg and hang hugging the central bark sideways. However, the first thing that struck me was the ominous, deafening silence as my heart hammered in my eardrums. The unnerving silence turned liquid, seeped into me and stopped all the reaction in my body, making me feel weightless for a split second.

Soon, as my huffing and panting dies and my heart began beating at its regular pace, I fluttered open my eyes...to a Picasso painting of sorts, a fantastical work of art by Dali perhaps, depicting his dreams. Before me laid a wide stretch of lush green below and a beautiful mixture of scarlet cerulean and orange above.

Above, the heavens seemed as if the angels had accidentally split buckets of paint and happened to taint the cerulean sky with the glorious, resplendent colours of the sunset: scarlet, azure, orange and pink. The shades merged into each other to form other nuances in the colour palette that no man can achieve. Among the beautiful frenzy of colours, fluffy white clouds loitered about the sky aimlessly, like cotton dabbed in a box of paint. However, the most magnificent of all was the large, orange ball of fire far out into the void, dipping into the Earth behind a row of apple trees. The sun, the object around which our entire existence revolved, without which we wouldn’t have the option of even considering the statement ‘to be or not to be’ shone as bright as ever as its golden rays caressed the ravaged Earth to wholeness. The sky simply exploded with the gaudy colours of pastels, vivacious and alive. A flock of birds flew past me overhead, their wings held a lot by a cooling sigh of wind.

The masterpiece below was a separate entity of beauty. A lush green carpet sheathed the ground, glistening in the evening rain. The sheep were a reflection of the clouds above – white fluffs wandering aimlessly in a sea of green. A clique of ten boys tackled a single ballm while their endless chatter, squeals of delight and shouts of victory was scattered by the wind. The landscape was dotted with random humans doing what is necessary to close the day by tying its loose ends together. Some distance away, interminable serpents of smoke began snaking their way out of the sea of red roofs to the west as people prepared for the chilly night to creep up on them.

However, from my vantage point, I knew I was the Queen and Protector of all I survey – the heaven, the sun and the hinterlands belong to me!

From here, I knew I was both invisible and invincible.

14th September 2015

Monday 13 June 2016

Wondering about the Divine Comedy

I just had this thought while reading about 'Inferno' in the Divine Comedy: as Dante descends the rings of hell and sees more of God's increasingly cruel punishments to those who have sinned, he begins to understand that there is justice in God's violent acts. However, I can't help wondering:
What is the difference between justice and revenge?
Is it justice only because God does it? If God thinks we should be merciful and compassionate, then how come he doesn't treat the sinned with mercy? Isn't that hypocritical of God? Now, since God considers hypocrisy to be a sin too, then shouldn't God be punished in the nine rings of hell too?

What if I were to bury a man upside-down in the soil? What if I were to make the hypocrites in my life wear gilded coats of lead? What if were to burn heretics alive in their tombs? I'm clearly not being merciful in all these cases, I'm being vengeful - or maybe I'm just being another 'God'.

Maybe God isn't setting a very good example for all of us.