Books

I read this book because of the article I found on Hermes Trismegistus a character who shows up in the weirdest places. The alleged inspiration behind the Egyptian god Thoth and the later Greek god Hermes, Hermetic philosophy appears to be incredibly influential in world religion yet something I had never really heard of. This is where we get the phrase “Hermetically sealed” from as the process was used in alchemy in attempts to make the philosopher’s stone. Enter the Kybalion, a fairly popular book written by the three initiates which puts the hermetic philosophy into a nice, condensed package. ...

Written by Mikhail Bulgakov(Ukrainian) in the USSR during Stalin’s reign the book was censored and only published in full posthumously. The book is now widely considered to be one of the best novels of the 20th century and with good reason. The novel opens with a conversation between a literary editor and a poet. The editor had just commissioned the poet to write a satirical poem belittling Jesus and was upset with the poet’s creation. According to the editor, the poet’s approach was all wrong because he admitted that Jesus existed in the first place and was not a completely mythological creation. With great erudition he points out the similarity between different mystery religions and Christianity, and also the parallels between the dying and rising gods category of mythology. While the poet listens deeply impressed by these new facts a mysterious tall stranger sits on a bench next to them. Overhearing their conversation, he breaks in asking what they were talking about. The stranger then relates a captivating account of the conversation between Pontius Pilate and Jesus. He then predicts that the literary editor will be beheaded…. I will say no more of the plot as I would highly recommend this book makes its way onto your read list. The writing is superb, the story is engrossing, sags a little in the middle but picks up again at the end. I also guarantee whatever ideas about the plot you have, given the introduction I gave are pleasantly mistaken. Say what you will about Stalin and the rough Russian climate, but the images of hope, forgiveness, and love that the area produced seem to be unparalleled.

Synopsis Published in 1942 Camus began writing this book as France (his home country) was collapsing under the pressure of the German advance. Let’s just say it was probably a pretty dark time to be a Frenchmen. This book starts off by Camus asking what he considers to be the most important question in philosophy. Which is: does the realization that life is meaningless and absurd necessarily require suicide? He then begins by defining exactly what he means by absurd. According to Camus the absurd emerges when man’s passionate and ceaseless desire for an answer from the universe is, and forever will be met by silence. He asserts that many philosophers have started from this realization but have in the end taken a leap to get around or alleviate the discomfort of this conclusion. Either by turning to a God or elevating reason until it essentially serves the function of God. He labels this leap “philosophical suicide”. He says that suicide in general is admission that either life is too much for you or that you do not understand it. The same could be said of this philosophical leap. His approach is rooted in acceptance of the absurd without hope, but a perpetual revolt in spite of this fact. He uses the story of Sisyphus (the guy who is cursed to roll a rock up a hill only to see it roll back down again) as a guide to how to live in this absurd world. He says, “there is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.” This is the attitude of revolt that the absurd hero must adopt. To at once be fully conscious of the meaninglessness of your life while at the same time transcending this conclusion by acceptance. As the famous quote from this essay states “one must imagine Sisyphus happy”. The point is that you can choose to find freedom in a universe that does not have a predefined path. ...

This book was complete trash. This wins the worst book I’ve read since I can remember. There weren’t any redeeming factors in this book. The author was a strong proponent of the “Jesus went to India” theory, which is literally based on one book by some random Russian dude who may or may not have gotten rich from the story. No modern-day scholars put any merit in this theory. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong necessarily, but it does mean you can get a show on the History channel if you believe in it. For some unknown reason the author tried to write the story in a sort of prose, which if you ever have heard spoken world then you know exactly the style this book was written in. The author’s views were an infusion of eastern mysticism with Marxist overtones. This by itself is great, but why not write in a normal format. Also why try to foist your views onto a 1st century Palestinian? This book would have been more convincing and enjoyable had it been written like a normal book instead of in Goodwill prose, also if he could have cited sources, for further research that would have been much appreciated.

Julian Barnes wrote my favorite book of 2020 (The History of the World in 10 and 1/2 Chapters) so I was looking forward to reading a newer book from him. This one was published in 2016 and is not quite a historical fiction and not a true autobiography but more like a story that follows the life of a Russian composer (Dmitri Shostakovich) under Stalin shortly after WWII. Barnes then fills in some missing pieces, drawing out a psychological portrait of a neurotic and somewhat spineless composer under the iron fist of the USSR. All in all, this book had some really good moments but came nowhere near the mastery (IMO) of what I was expecting from Barnes. Where Solzhenitsyn approaches the USSR regime as a prisoner in a gulag this is from the perspective of Russia’s most popular composer who was also in constant fear of the gulag. This helps to paint a picture of what life was like to those who were “lucky” enough to be outside the gulag. I really like Barnes’ writing style, but I would not put this is on a must-read list.

The Perennial Philosophy was Aldous Huxley’s attempt to unify the major world religions. The premise of the book is that they are all talking about the same thing and the differences are illusory. He relies heavily on mystics from some of the main traditions (Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and Zen). It is clear that Huxley has done an immense amount of research into all these traditions and is able to pull out some fascinating quotes from each. Here are some interesting thoughts: ...

A witty read that follows a gullible but beneficent aristocrat (Samuel Pickwick) and his friends that form the Pickwick Club around as they galivant around the English countryside. Eating, drinking and getting into trouble. A brilliant writer, Dickens manages to convey the frivolity of life with an irresistible charm that makes you want to join in, even though it is all very silly. Filled with adventures as well as short stories told by various characters the plot is only loosely attended to, allowing the reader to hear many stories in one. is one of my favorite short stories. I will say that there are many stories where the characters get in trouble in somewhat stressful ways. Not sure what the name of this troupe is, but for example the main character gets lost in a hotel in the middle of the night. Returns to a room that looks just like his and starts to settle down but as the reader you are pretty sure that it isn’t his room. He is nearly asleep when a woman walks in, but due to the lighting he only sees the shape of a person and hides behind some drapes thinking it was a thief before realizing it was a woman, and that he must be in her room. This puts him in a very awkward position of course and as the reader you also happen to know that he was just hanging out with a guy who had come to that hotel to propose to a woman and naturally the woman in the room ends up being the same woman who was to be proposed to the next day and on and on. So if you don’t find that stuff entertaining than this isn’t for you, but I much enjoy. I guess a little similar to Naked Gun or something, but the protagonist isn’t quite so bumbling. All in all, good

The Plague is a fictional story about a cousin of the Bubonic plague reappearing in the town of Oran in Algeria on the North coast of Africa. As an aside the stranger also took place mostly in Algeria but in a different city. Really well written but quite dark, reading the plague was maybe a little too soon after COVID, but it was a great reminder that we are incredibly lucky that things weren’t as bad as they could have been. The story follows the doomed efforts of a doctor to treat the untreatable or in the doctor’s words “an endless defeat”. Yet with dogged persistence and help of a friend they organize a small crew inside the cutoff city to do what they can to stem the tide of the disease. As Camus was also a part of the French resistance in WW2 there are obvious parallels to the feelings of hopelessness but rebellion in the face of it ...

I love myths, so this book was really interesting in that regard. It goes well beyond the common ones that you’ve heard. Definitely made me want to read more about myths from North America. Campbell and Peterson seem like two peas in a pod although it seems like one pea (Peterson) has spent more time looking into the abyss than the other, for better or worse. This book is very staccato, an idea broached, a story told and then moved past to the next. What was at first a conversation between Campbell and Moyers was transcribed into the power of myth. In this sense it made for a poor book seeing as a book is the best medium we have for long form thought, but a conversation unless purely one sided can never truly be long form. The silver lining was that you were able to witness a huge breadth of Campbell’s beliefs instead of a narrow but deep vein. It made for a good overview of his position so that if you ever were to read one of his books in the future you won’t be starting from scratch. The connections made in this book were very interesting and food for more research. I am especially interested in the connection of the rise and fall of goddesses and the beginning of agriculture. Simone de Beauvoir pointed out essentially the same thing and for the similar reasons. Campbell seems places the chain of causality to be: ...

And upon completion of this book, I would like to please receive a paper certificate that indicates my commitment to the advance of woman’s equality in society. Furthermore, I would like to be acknowledged as being a forerunner in the movement to bring about a peaceful conclusion to the war between the sexes. To put it shortly I feel as though I have solved all issues based on sex and am equipped to fully exercise my god given authority over women now that I have a complete understanding of them. Jokes aside this was a very dense book, but had many valuable insights nestled in there. Published in 1949 the information, descriptions, and approach of this book are unavoidably dated, due to the fact that it has been so influential in shaping modern conceptions of “the plight of womankind”. That being said I feel as though our upbringing and indoctrination created similar expectations about women as those widely held in the 50s. So, this book was ‘convicting’ more so for me than it probably would be for most people in our modern culture. Split into two volumes the first volume discusses what “woman” is. Looking first at biological examples from various insects, animals and eventually humans. Then with this foundation she transitions from the physiological to the psychological. While critical of most thinkers (like Freud and Adler) that had attempted to analysis woman’s condition it is easy to tell that she was heavily influenced by their form of analysis. I’ve seen/heard many people talk about how she completely disagreed with these thinkers, but that is not how I read it. For example, the Freudian concept about women suffering from penis envy, is rebaptized in her thought as the fact that women are envious of the privileges that come along with having a penis. This is a long and interesting (to me) conversation but long story short, I don’t see this view as a complete contradiction, but more of a reformation. She ends volume 1 with an in depth look at the various mythical styling that are given to women. In particular focusing on a handful of author’s depictions as a case study. Noting that each of these different types of mythologies make heavy use of mystery when describing woman. This mystery is largely responsible for creating this idea of the “other” where woman isn’t another subjective free acting human, but something else. Volume 2 then describes woman’s experience from infancy to old age. This section was actually very interesting to me, and I feel like I learned a fair bit that I was not aware of previously. To summarize, the distance between the starting line and the finish line of becoming a unified self is much longer and more confusing for women than it is for men. There are many more opportunities for women to stop halfway on the path to individualization than there are for men thanks in large part (but not entirely) to the path society has set out for them. She then cycles through many stereotypes of women and provides a psychoanalysis of each case which would always start off with me thinking she was insane, or overstating things and by the end, everything she said started making sense. The book concludes with her talking about why there haven’t been very many great women authors, artists, etc. Put simply (do not strike me dead Simone) women have to first convince themselves and the world that they are competent individuals. This initial effort takes so much energy and time that they are left with little energy to go further. This “going further” is essential in becoming great. Few men achieve it even with having a head start, which explains why even fewer women achieve it, and why “Wuthering Heights, in spite of its stature, does not have the scope of Brothers Karamazov” (Had to sneak in a Dostoevsky plug in there). You cannot expect a black slave to write a transcendent epic like Moby Dick, because the experiences that allowed the author to create the epic are not open to the slave. This book was, as I said dense. Some parts were slow, others interesting. But most modern ideas about birth control, abortion and economic equality of the sexes, and objectification have their birthplace in this book. I could definitely see re-reading some of these sections again to be reminded of some of the insights she presented. Great stuff