Mądrym dla memoriału, idiotom dla nauki, politykom dla praktyki, melancholikom dla rozrywki.
April 21, 2012
In a review of the latest book by Michel Houellebecq, “The Map and the Territory”, Elaine Blair explores the common themes in his novels: alienation, boredom, depression and, above all, sexual frustration.
She acknowledges, however, that the new book focuses more on the creative endeavors of the protagonist, and less on his sexuality:
The Map and the Territory, like Jed’s life, is organized around his work rather than his love affairs. Jed might go out with an interesting woman when she crosses his path, he might hire a prostitute here and there, but sex is not a big deal, and love, though it still matters, is not the most important part of his life. “The last remaining myth of Western civilization was that sex was something to do; something expedient, a diversion,” writes Houellebecq in The Elementary Particles. His earlier books were taken up with that myth and its ruinous effect on the characters’ lives. The new book actually gives sex the diminished place that it deserves, according to Houellebecq’s logic. In this way there is something idealistic in the structure of the book: it offers an example of the right way to apportion work and sex in one’s life. There is an ideal expressed in the narrative tone as well: in distinction from the earlier novels, it is calm.
A great read for anybody interested in Houellebecq’s work.
Relative readability
April 21, 2012
Zarathustra went down the mountain alone, no one meeting him. When he entered the forest, however, there suddenly stood before him an old man, who had left his holy cot to seek roots. And thus spake the old man to Zarathustra:
"No stranger to me is this wanderer: many years ago passed he by.
Zarathustra he was called; but he hath altered.
Then thou carriedst thine ashes into the mountains: wilt thou now
carry thy fire into the valleys? Fearest thou not the incendiary's
doom?
"No stranger to me is this wanderer: many years ago passed he by.
Zarathustra he was called; but he hath altered.
Then thou carriedst thine ashes into the mountains: wilt thou now
carry thy fire into the valleys? Fearest thou not the incendiary's
doom?
Wislawa Szymborska: The happiness of wisdom felt
April 20, 2012
Adam Gopnik pays tribute to the late Nobel-winning poet Wislawa Szymborska:
They thought of her as a friend and neighbor and counsellor—as someone to worry about, and worry with, more than someone to merely pay the blank tribute of “admiration.” She had no mere “admirers,” really, though her friends and fans, in this American neighborhood alone, ran from Jane Hirshfeld and Billy Collins to Woody Allen.
Is there a real you?
April 19, 2012
At TEDxYouth@Manchester, Julian Baggini, a British philosopher, raises a question whether human beings have a certain core, or essence — something permanent that defines us as unique individuals.
The joy of quiet
April 21, 2012
Pico Iyer on the need to slow down, step away from the ever present technology and rediscover the essentials in our lives:
In barely one generation we’ve moved from exulting in the time-saving devices that have so expanded our lives to trying to get away from them — often in order to make more time. The more ways we have to connect, the more many of us seem desperate to unplug. Like teenagers, we appear to have gone from knowing nothing about the world to knowing too much all but overnight.