Reviews

Summary David Copperfield unsurprisingly tells the story of a character named David Copperfield. We see him, albeit retrospectively, grow from a very young boy into a middle-aged man. Along the way, we meet a host of characters who fill the structure of Copperfield’s life with color. Thoughts I can’t help but view this book through the lens of recently reading Kingsolver’s “Demon Copperhead.” I realized that Kingsolver’s book was inspired by David Copperfield, but I did not realize just to what extent. In short, “Demon Copperhead” could be considered a retelling of David Copperfield set in modern-day Appalachia. This affected me in a few ways; for one, it made the story less exciting because once you realized just how closely the plots in the two books were connected, the twists and events were spoiled. Secondly, it made for an interesting dynamic where you read, in a sense, to see what was redacted from the new book. As Camus says, “The censor shouts aloud what he proscribes.” Although this is an interesting way to consume a story, it probably isn’t how Dickens would have wanted to be read. With that out of the way, the story itself was good, if not a little long in the tooth at places. The characters were really strong and memorable. It has the optimism of pre-modern literature that is always a breath of fresh air. If you had to pick one to read, I would always default to the original book; this case is no exception. Dickens is a master author on default settings; he will entertain but seldom surprise. I always enjoy my time with him but have yet to be deeply affected by him. ...

Gogol is one more of those Russian authors (actually born in Ukraine) that was an inspiration to many other authors (Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Kafka, etic) I thought it was about time to take the old boy out himself. Dead Souls follows a mysterious character that the reader gets to know as the book unfolds who just as mysteriously wants to buy dead serfs from Russian aristocrats. The writing style was easy to digest, and the book is filled with many charming and ridiculous characters. This book was somewhat unique as the author would break the fourth wall from time to time and give his own views about things. Full of insightful social commentary and awkward predicaments the book was called the Russian Pickwick Papers, but I wouldn’t go that far, I would say this book is a lot less ridiculous and more surreal, which I would guess is why it appealed to Kafka. The book surprisingly ends in mid-sentence leaving scholars to argue whether or not it was supposed to be that way. Whether it was or not it definitely felt like the rug was pulled from under you. Gogol was another one of those Russian authors that seemed to live like a character from his books. A complete chad that wanted to teach Cossack history but instead was offered a job teaching Medieval History at the university of St. Petersburg a subject of which he had no qualifications. ...

I was expecting this to be a collection of stories, but it was more about the actual mentality of survivors themselves. Overall, really entertaining read, but I wouldn’t rely too heavily on the advice inside it other than general rules of thumb. The one thing about survival stories is everyone is unique, and so advice that is good in one situation may get you killed in others.

This is a great book to build a functional understanding of the how and why of the U.S. government. The first volume is fantastic; the second one is slightly more speculative but still full of good insights. Much has changed since the writing of the book in the 1830s, although one of de Tocqueville’s central claims—that Russia and the U.S. were destined to be world powers—has panned out quite nicely. Instead of a full review, which would be insanely long due to the length and breadth of the book, I’ll leave some scattered thoughts: ...

Summary The title being a play on Dicken’s David Copperfield, Kingsolver instead writes about a boy growing up as a foster child in Appalachia. Surrounded by drugs and poverty, what kind of life can a kid expect? Spoiler: not a great one. Thoughts The Good The book is entertaining, and you easily become attached to the main character and are invested in how he turns out. The book is really good at making you feel like you are a dirty, poor, uneducated, overlooked teen. So, if that’s what you’re in the mood for this book delivers. Also, Kingsolver makes decent points about the acceptable and prevalence of racism versus rednecks or hillbillies. She also makes some interesting, yet less convincing, arguments around this discrimination being fueled by the fat cats who want everyone to be part of the money economy (i.e., get everything by paying money) which can be taxed versus land economy (i.e., produce goods like food and clothing off the land) which cannot be taxed. The goal of the book was to enlighten urbanites to the suffering of the poor whites, and to shine a light on the damage caused by pharmaceutical companies which knowingly got entire counties hooked on cheap opiates. ...

We were silent again for a minute. “Cher,” he concluded at last, getting up quickly, “do you know this is bound to end in something?” “Of course,” said I. “Vous ne comprenez pas. Passons. But … usually in our world things come to nothing, but this will end in something; it’s bound to, it’s bound to!” Summary Dostoyevsky chose as the epigraph to this story the passage of Luke where Jesus sends the demons into the swine, and they subsequently throw themselves off a cliff. A curious passage, and one that will come up over and over in this book. I won’t bother to write a plot summary because spoilers, and also like all of Dostoyevsky’s books, the plot is the tortilla of the burrito. It serves mainly to deliver the contents of the book. The contents are the conversations. The characters are unforgettable, you have a fifty-year-old child, who was influential once, but is of no practical use and literally runs away from home. You have Stavrogin, a man who can’t bring himself to believe in anything, but apparently can’t stop influencing people with the force of his ideas. You have the power-hungry revolutionary sociopath Pyotr Stepanovich who is always willing to break a few eggs to make an omelet. Last but not least, one of the most compelling characters Kirillov, the atheists par excellence, consumed by an idea, courageous, selfless, and ultimately doomed. In short, this work is a literary masterpiece that managed to divine the future of Russia with astonishing clarity. ...

Summary Scottish philosopher David Hume explores various approaches to theism via dialogue, featuring three central figures: Demea Demea represents pre-Enlightenment theism, which emphasized the difference between man and God. The godhead is unintelligible and must be approached by faith alone. We must make our way through this veil of tears, holding on to the belief that everything will be put to rights in the next world. Cleanthes Cleanthes is a post-Enlightenment scientific Christian who highlights the similarities between the mind of God and human reason. To Cleanthes, man can access God, though imperfectly, through reason. When he looks at the universe, he sees a marvelous machine designed by a benevolent creator. It is the delight of man to learn more about their creator by discovering the mechanisms by which the universe operates. Philo Philo is a theistic skeptic, whose role in the dialogue is to tease out the problems in his friends’ positions. His view is closer to that of Demea but differs in conclusion, believing that it is incredibly unlikely that any human will land on a cosmology that is anywhere near the truth. Therefore, the wisest tactic would be to approach the topic with caution. ...

This is a collection of four short /ish stories by the king of Steve. It was all in all very entertaining. I can see why people like the guy. A little pedestrian at points but always in a diverting way. His characters are always believable and easy (for me at least) to relate to.

Don Quixote is hailed by many as the best work of fiction ever written. While I’m not sure I’d go that far, it is impressive that a book written in the 1600s can still be funny, entertaining, and not terribly dated 400 years later. This book was a lot of fun to read. Don Quixote of La Mancha and his trusty squire, Sancho Panza, get into all sorts of hijinks as they travel around the Spanish countryside. Don Quixote is convinced he is a knight errant, and that all the stories about knight errantry that were told previously actually happened. This leads him into some very interesting and ironic situations. One of the most interesting things about this book is that, while everyone he comes into contact with almost immediately recognizes that he is insane, there is still some magnetic quality about the nobility of his character that causes people to like him. Additionally, even though he was insane, to some extent his madness created the reality that he believed in and gave him meaningful experiences that he would have missed out on if he hadn’t believed in knight errantry. This was a long book, maybe a touch too long, but was never dry.

Summary I am not going to write a summary for Dracula. I do pointless things all the time, but not THIS time. Thoughts Very entertaining, I never really got creeped out or tense because all the characters were just so upbeat about everything all the time. The best parallel I can think of is something like reading a King Arthur adventure where every character has their character stats maxed out. The people on the good team are the best most honorable loving and supportive people of all time, while the people on the bad team are the most despicable of all time. The setting and atmosphere of the book was fantastic. Some very memorable scenes involving castle climbing and armies of rats. My only gripe was that the book is written as a series of journal entries and various article clippings. This makes a lot of sense in the beginning of the book when the characters are physically separated but by the end when they are all in the same room it feels cumbersome. Also, because I love nicknames, I am dubbing the author as Bram ‘I’m so glad Mina isn’t involved’ Stoker. Good times!