Fahrenheit 451

This book was so easy to read. Perhaps as easy to read as Simon Singh's Fermat's Last Theorem. Which is enjoyable, because seeing how fast you read through the book can be satisfying.

  But the story that it tells, yet once again, makes me feel like most books are written by bibliophiles who believe knowledge is the key to humanity's greatness and success. It is at these times that I think of John Green's How Young Is History? video whose topic is, basically, that "the idea that History means progress is very new, like almost all of the 250,000-year history of humans looks more like a sine curve than an ascending line".
  Perhaps I like that video because, in my interpretation of its message, it coincides with my belief that we do not need to devote our lives to increase our rational intelligence to be happy, nor is that type of intelligence a prerequisite to have a meaningful and enjoyable life. My point is: I have heard people describe this book as one that tells about a dystopian future. But to me the idea of a society that does not read books, or that does not dedicate their lives to trying to expand the limits of knowledge, is not dystopian at all.

Fermat's Last Theorem

This book is based on a BBC documentary on the same topic which I watched back in 2011 when my friend Fabián was visiting St Andrews for the first time. Last year, also while visiting St Andrews, he gave me this book as a present.

  What is interesting about this book (and, also the documentary) is that it achieves something that, in my opinion, had been missing in other places. What I mean is: John and Hank Green have YouTube shows where they explain various subjects from the humanities and the sciences with entertaining factoids. They conspicuously do not have a show on mathematics. To be fair, it would appear to be far more challenging to have a show on mathematics. But it is precisely because of that reason that this book is remarkable, because it is a very entertaining book that aims to explain pure mathematics with a narrative full of factoids. Oddly enough, I thought the documentary was slightly better than the book.

Watership Down

This book was recommended to me by Michael Torpey, a friend whose opinion I value highly. Even though I had not previously heard about it, Watership Down apparently is almost an English classic. Almost everyone around me had at least seen the animated movie version.

  The story is entertaining and easy to read. Though I found that the rabbit mythology, introduced as short stories within the novel, felt at times like they were interrupting the fluidity of the plot. It seemed to me that the plot gained little by including these myths, and that their omission would not have significally changed the course of events. However, I must accept that having included these stories within the story did contribute to the beauty of the epilogue, which left me with a smile.

  I do agree with some of the criticism that I have read. The female rabbits are indeed portrayed mainly as sexual objects, and I do believe that all the current dialogue on sexual misconduct intensified the awkwardness of this portrayal. One must remember that this novel is based on stories that the author told his daughters to entertain them on long journeys, surely he did not mean any harm? Though there was also an ethnic reference which further contributed to making the story feel dated.

  Perhaps I am beeing too harsh. I should leave it on a positive note: Watership Down is a nice story about rabbits.

I Love St Andrews

(Brown and Gamble, C. and G.. I Love St Andrews. Cover. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: Cartographie Press: 2015)
       I saw this book on a window of The Citizen in St Andrews and thought it was a very cute book, judging by its cover. I ended up buying it from Waterstones, St Andrews.
       My favourite illustration of this book is on the first two of its pages: a picture of West Sands on a sunny day with a subtle hint of purple hue. Yes this book does bring back memories of my time here as an undergrad. I am doing my PhD now, and it has been eight years since I first arrived in St Andrews. I did not buy this book solely because it reminds me of times past but because I love St Andrews.

The Course of Love

We speak of 'love' as if it were a single, undifferentiated thing, but it comprises two very different modes: being loved and loving. We should marry when we are ready to do the latter and have become aware of our unnatural and dangerous fixation on the former.

(de Botton, A. The Course of Love. p. 222. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: Hamish Hamilton, 2016)

       Thank you to Arvo Muñoz Morán, former student of mine, for giving me this book as a birthday gift. The Course of Love is not just a "love story", it is the telling of the experiences one will almost certainly live when one takes the decision of getting married. It is different from previous love stories that I have read because most of them end in the "happily ever after", whereas in this book "ever after" is the second part of the book, out of four.
       What comes after one gets married, that is, the actual marriage, is not an easy thing to describe. Indeed only afterwards do the inconveniences of learning to live with someone else become a blatant reality. However this is not new, this we all knew without the need of reading any book. What was a novelty was that I got a glimpse at what other people might think when these arguments occur, a glimpse at what may be the likely causes of disputes, and what the other person might be thinking in those circumstances. Ultimately, I thought, learning how to be ready for marriage is similar to the process of growing up and becoming more mature. Like the process of transitioning from being a teenager to an adult.
       When reading through very unpleasant episodes of Rabih and Kirsten's marriage, I could not help but ask myself: "Why would anyone want to go through these unpleasantries with the foreknowledge of them happening and of them being so ominous?" Then I remember the feeling. I hope that when the time comes I am a better person, more mature, and more understanding.

El nombre del viento

I want to thank Carmen Reyes Luna, former student of mine, who gave me this book. Thank you for introducing me to this world and thank you for your good work. As the title of this entry might suggest I read this book in Spanish. It is a translation from the English, its original title is The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. It was a good experience to read again in Spanish. I had not done it in a few years now.
       It seems natural of literature, to me, to talk about characters that have innate extraordinary abilities. Like being able to learn new things in just a few hours and excel at them from the very first time they did it. That is the case of this book. Its protagonist, Kvothe, can do anything. He is meant to be a prodigious child who knows more than all his classmates at university (a kind of magical university) and does things better than anyone else without putting much, if any, effort. Perhaps at another stage of my life I would have accepted this setting. However, I have adopted a less flexible perspective on this matter. I believe that success is always the result of good effort, not of an innate talent. It is because if this strong belief that I had a hard time accepting the narrative. In fact, I am not sure I accepted it.
       That was not the only issue I had with the book. In my opinion, Kvothe is an arrogant, violent, and impolite person. I do not think Kvothe realizes this because he often talks about how educated he believes he is and also talks about formality and good manners. I just disagree. There was an episode during which he openly threatened a lady, Denna, of knocking her unconscious if she refused to do as he said. But in a later episode when he learns that a potential patron of Denna had struck her to save her life, he suddenly is of the opinion that a man who harbours even the thought of punching a lady is foul, evil, and unworthy of her. These are not the only occasions when I thought Kvothe's behaviour was unacceptable. Furthermore, it seems to me that the novel also wants to foster the stereotype of resentment against the upper class by repeatedly arguing that people that are not poor must be untalented, and that poor people know better because it is only them who have seen truly harsh things in life. Again, I just disagree.
       The story is told as memoirs that are being dictated to a person who is interested in recording them. There are some breaks in their telling that bring us to the present day. Present day Kvothe seems to be a more amiable and humble person. These breaks gave me a relief from being in constant disapproval of his past behaviour and opinions.

Berlin Alexanderplatz

If it's true; but Franz, why he's a bit stupid, he let's 'em do anything with him. That's why they threw him out of the car. That's the kind of fellows they are. That's the kind of society he goes with. (Döblin, A. Berlin Alexanderplatz. p. 269. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: Continuum, 2004).
       This is yet another book that had been lying in my shelf for some years. It took me long to finish reading it. Sometimes I did not have the determination to sit down to read, some other times the way the book was written made me not want to read it. Most of the time it was the way the book is written. It is too reflective, and the plot is constantly interrupted by these meditations on ghastly thoughts.
       The book is about Franz Biberkopf who is recently discharged from jail and is determined to live an honest life. But he does not manage to live an honest life, all the contrary happens. Throughout the book he sees himself involved in a myriad of cirmes, mostly because he is unable to assess the consequences of his actions and cannot tell between right or wrong. Franz surrounds himself with ghastly people who, in seeing how naïve he is, trick him into committing crimes. This makes me think about how when a person is under a depression spell he cannot see beyond his own feelings and cannot see what the path to solving his problems is. It is not until one is experiencing some calmness that the answer becomes clear, but it is still up to us to take the very difficult decision to change our ways. To leave the path we had been following and decide to make a radical change of course.
       I am not sure I would recommend reading this book. Depression is indeed a serious matter and we should all know what it is and how to overcome it. But perhaps there are better ways to learn about this topic.