Beyond Anxiety

 This was simply not a book for me. I did not find it useful, and it was mostly a disappointment. I only finished reading it because it was a birthday present. Here is a quote from the book that beautifully captures how I feel about it: 'But first let's talk about the fact that everything I'm saying may sound ridiculously woo-woo or far too simplistic' (Beck, M. Beyond Anxiety. p. 261. United States of America: Penguin Books, 2025). Indeed. What a waste of time.

The Satanic Verses

 What a provocative title. When I first learnt about this book, which was when I was around twelve years old, I thought it had something to do with Christianity. Then I learnt about the plight the author went through because of it, which added to its allure. Now I have finally read it and I feel like I do not know what it is about. I did do some quick reading about Islam and about what are the 'Satanic verses'. That helped me understand parts of the plot. And I imagine someone who is more knowledgeable about Islam might probably find this book much more interesting than I did. I am not sure how I feel about books that require you to have some prior connection to an aspect of culture and society for the reader to better appreciate the story. Although I imagine that, to some extent, that might be true of all books. Perhaps what I am trying to say is that I feel annoyed that I am sufficiently ignorant about Islam and that as a result it would appear that I did not enjoy this book as much as I could have otherwise enjoyed it. Still, most of the novel is intense magic realism in a way that made it quite difficult for me to follow what was going on. The part that I enjoyed the most was the ending, which coincidentally felt like the most concrete and tangible part of the story.
  Overall, it saddens me to think that the people most likely to understand the intricacies of the novel seem to be the least interested in reading it. Nonsense, if I really wanted to better understand the book I could do my own deeper research, and reread multiple times the book. Except, learning about any religion is not something I am actually interested in. In fact, I am currently of the opinion that the least I know about them the better. Which I know deep down that it cannot be true. One should never be proud of one's ignorance.
  Anyhow, this is not a book that I liked. But I do look forward to reading Midnight's Children.

The Karamazov Brothers

I am sorry I left writing this post for so long. I finished reading this book in February and it is now October. As a result, I no longer have as fresh a memory of the story as I would have if I had written about it back in February. I do stand by my three-star rating. It was a good book. But there was something missing for it to be great. What I most appreciated about the book was the fact that it serves as a record proving that wrongly incriminating a person is a phenomenon whose existence dates back ages ago. Of course The Karamazov Brothers was first published in 1880, but I am sure there are much older books that deal with this topic. It is a shame that we never got the sequel to the story. I want to believe that I would have liked to see Dmitri vindicated. But even if he was not vindicated in the eyes of society, then what I would have liked perhaps even more is to see him overcome his grossly undeserved condemnation and thrive in life in spite of it. Maybe I do like this book more than I want to admit. At least in retrospect I admire it much more.

Kidnapped

 I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand I enjoyed it so much because I was brought back to Scotland, I was reminded of all the beautiful things that I lived there. I enjoyed learning so many new words: 127 new words in a book that is relatively short (my copy had only 314 pages). Yet, I was not really interested in the storyline and it took me much longer to finish reading the novel than it really should have. Yes, some of it was due to my characteristic procrastination, but in this case I strongly believe the core reason must have been that I failed to find something meaningfully interesting in the book.

Call Me by Your Name

 I was not expecting to like this book, mainly because I have seen the movie and did not particularly like it. But it was a cute story. It was a cute book. Now, they say that standards are good but double standards are better. There are multiple sex passages and sex references in this book. Normally I would be put off by that. I find modern descriptions of sex in contemporary literature rather gratuitous. That, for example, is part of the reason why I tend not to like things written by Haruki Murakami. But I have mostly read books that deal with heterosexual sex. For that reason, it feels somewhat unfair that this book, with its various descriptions of homosexual sex between men, did not elicit in me a similar criticism of the prose. I wonder whether Hannah Fidell, the creator behind FX on Hulu's series "A Teacher", would also hold this book to a double standard. A quick reminder: "A Teacher" is scathingly critical of sexual relationships between adults and minors. The female teacher in that series was severely punished and there was no mercy shown to her for the sexual relationship she had with a male minor. I wonder what Hannah Fidell would think of a sexual relationship between an adult male graduate student and a male minor. Clearly, André Aciman thinks there is nothing wrong with that. Quite the opposite. Am I missing something? Is there an argument I am not seeing that explains why the creator of "A Teacher" and the author of Call Me by Your Name reach polar opposite conclusions about the same kind of sexual relationship? Or could it be that Elon Musk is at least partly right in saying that there is a woke mind virus that is infecting the minds of many in the United States? I would like to know. Verdict on the relationship between Emmanuel Macron and his wife: pending—it will depend on whether the judge is Hannah Fidell or André Aciman.

Mrs Dalloway

Reading Mrs Dalloway was a much nicer experience than reading To the Lighthouse. I found several passages very beautiful. I loved the descriptions of London. And I saw a lot of myself reflected in Peter Walsh—at least my previous self, a self that I am trying very hard to leave behind. Despite that, I have sadly decided that I do not like Virginia Woolf's writing style, at least not her stream of thought style of those two novels. I find it extremely confusing, extremely difficult to follow. So much so that it opaques the beauty of several masterfully written sentences. It is almost like Virginia Woolf thought that beauty could only exist in immensely complex and incomprehensible narratives. I do not think I dislike things only because I do not understand them. I do not understand the stars in the sky, yet I admire them greatly. In this case, however, I do not understand her writing style, which happens to greatly contribute to my dislike of her novels.

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

There is not really much one can say about this book. At least it had the decency of being so short that you do not really have to spend much time with it. I read The Reluctant Fundamentalist in 2009, before I started this blog so I do not have a record of my opinion on that book. But from what I can remember, it was a more interesting read, which renders How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia a disappointment.