Ataraxia

  The Chartreuse de Parma by Stendhal Love, war, politics, and betrayal- it makes for an action-packed and Romantic saga   This would be the nec plus ultra as a thriller. But is it still a valid standard in the world of today? Not for a teenager in this day and age. The fact is, I believe most of the young people are too used with action packed games, thrillers, Transformers and other such works that give you mega explosions, lasers, bazookas and other paraphernalia, that make “an action novel” such as The Chartreuse seem lame for the dudes of the 21 st  century. I remember when I first read The Chartreuse and The Red and Le Rouge et Le Noir that I could not let the book out of my hand and was thrilled by what was going on in the novel. Fabricio Del Dongo, the main personage of The Chartreuse is the incarnation of the action super hero. He would not stand a chance when faced with Iron Man, Captain America and the like…I guess, since I have never seen either movie, and nev...

Macbeth by William Shakespeare Astonishing – 10 out of 10     It looks like these will be some personal notes and impressions on such a famous and popular play that it has -             410, 028 ratings!! -             And 5,274 reviews!! This is just on goodreads and we can be sure that there are millions more out there that have read this magnificent play. In the first place, before I forget or change my mind while writing this, I must put down that I am aware of the majesty of Macbeth. William Shakespeare is considered by many scholars to be the greatest writer of all time and for very reason. At least his major plays- Hamlet, King Lear and Othello – have been ranked with the best masterpieces of mankind. The others are absolute marvels, but I guess there are some who grumble, others who are not into old language. As evidence of the popularity but also the different tastes of...

  Another version of this note and thoughts on other books are available at: -               https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEVa4_CsRStSBBDo4uJWT8BSWtTTn0N1E The Augustine Notebooks I am not even sure what this is. When I tried to look it up on the internet, there was practically nothing. So it could be an idea, or the start of a novel, perhaps a short story that is not included in the established collections… Or maybe the novel fragment that is mentioned on the web, but I did not find anything more about it…yet. Nevertheless, the account is short and quite…hot. The couple that lives on the Greek island of Rhodes does not seem to be too close, in the first part, when they argue. The man says that he does not think they have too many chances. And he has shaking hands, maybe from too much drinking. The only other day that is mentioned in the material that I listened to has a different outlook, with sex scen...

  La Maison du Chat-Qui-Pelote aka At the Sign of the Cat and Racket by Honore de Balzac Nine out of 10 With perhaps more than five thousand pages to go – though this reader has read Le Pere Goriot and Eugenie Grandet – reading La Comedie Humaine is not the task that I usually take upon, given the tendency to lose interest, if the opus is not Magnum, which this surely is and one of the ultimate classics at that, but since the name of my first macaw – and one of two friends at the moment – is Balzac, then there is a duty on more counts than one to engage with the work that is included on the Must Read list of French high schools (my daughter just told me yesterday), serious readers and The Guardian’s 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read compilation -  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/23/bestbooks-fiction  - in the State of the Nation section… The story that opens La Comedie Humaine and the first part, Scenes de la Vie Privee, could be construed as a book on The Secret...

  Antigone by Sophocles Impressive, difficult act to follow and one of the best plays you can read, even after 2,000 years      Antigone is an ancient classic. The production that I listened to about two hours ago is “theatrical „and grand, but I am stating all this in a good way. There are plays that are played over the top, films that are exaggerated and special effects that make me dizzy, but I prefer to listen to Antigone. It is difficult to understand the mindset of the people who lived a few thousand years ago and empathize with their acts. What am I saying? It is nearly impossible to figure out traditions in places and countries of the 21 st  century. -            How can you explain the stoning of an infidel woman or the death sentence passed for marrying outside your religion? Not to mention the beheading of innocent aid volunteers by the loathsome Islamic State fighters… From this perspective, what...