Ataraxia

  Au Revoir Les Enfants by Louis Malle – my previous note on this wonderful work is at https://realini.blogspot.com/2018/03/au-revoir-les-enfants-written-and.html where I have some other texts   9 out of 10   Trying to start off with a joke, the title is very attractive for this cinephile, because it means Goodbye Children, and considering where I live, that would be a nice prospect, if it could happen literally, as in this is a gated community we have here, with fat cats, and spoiled children, who abuse firecrackers and almost anything   As it is clear already, I will get to some points in Au Revoir Les Enfants, Insha’Allah, and then rant on this topic, and possibly others – as I write this, I have John Oliver in the background, with his latest episode of Last Week Tonight, where Orange Jesus rambles on something, what an idiot, OJ, not Oliver – so you have been warned It may not be necessary to keep using these spoiler alerts, albeit some fellow did read, and then he d

  A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay is included on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list, along with Herland – my note on this is at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/09/herland-by-charlotte-perkins-gilman.html within the following lines, there will be more links to the same blog, maybe there will be more than the 7 clicks it gets daily   9 out of 10   Apparently, this is not just one of those books everyone must read, but the "greatest novel of the twentieth century”, it was a central influence on C. S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, and through him on J. R. R. Tolkien, who said he read the book "with avidity"…Clive Barker called it "a masterpiece", so what else is there?   In many ways, it feels as if there would be nothing to add to the above, I mean if a few say this is nec plus ultra, crème de la crème, magnum opus, who am I to deny, or ponder these pronouncements, well, I am the one who writes these lines and Protagoras comes to mind

  Los Mejores Cuentos Eroticos aka The Best Erotic Tales by Giovanni Boccaccio – a previous look at the Decameron is here   https://realini.blogspot.com/2012/05/decameron.html it was twelve years ago, flawed view   9 out of 10   I was very surprised to find The Decameron on the list of The 100 Greatest Books of All Time, since I used to know it as literature that seemed explicit, pornographic for the adolescent who was told about this not by the literature teacher, but by some other teenager, who found out about putting the devil in hell from the oeuvre   It is prudish, preposterous to say ‘oh, this has sex in it, and it is so detailed, and with the words, and felatio, oh my god’ so I get it, and let me emphasize the pleasure I have had when, at the age of sixteen or thereabouts, I could read, again and again, about the fellow who lands at the abbey, or is it monastery, maybe there is a difference He was some gardener – it did not matter then, the details were irrelevant

  On Liars – Essays of Michel de Montaigne – The Complete Essays are among the 100 Greatest Books of All Time – my note on some of some of these exquisite thoughts are at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/10/the-essays-book-i-aka-les-essais-livre.html along with hundreds of other reviews   10 out of 10   The Complete Essays of Michel de Montaigne is not just a chef d’oevre, it is also a companion for many days…long, long days, for it has what, over fourteen hundred pages, and this is not to complain, indeed, I realized this morning that I have something fabulous, astounding to keep me high for days ahead, in the morning   I have taken to listening to the audiobook – you can get the magnum opera from the Gutenberg project, or the LibriVox site – as I run in the early hours, and this might be the perfect balance, and more – ‘Happiness Activity No 12: Taking care of Your Body- engaging in physical activity, meditating and smiling and laughing’ The latter is from the g

  The Model and Other Stories aka Το μοντέλο και άλλες ιστορίες by Anais Nin, an overwhelming read, erotic   9 out of 10   This is incredible, and I mean that – it was for me, the encounter with these extremely arousing stories was a shock, trying to be mirthful, I was thinking that we had here some years, even decades back, Sandra Brown, as a famous – maybe infamous, we need to consult Magister Ludi Kingsley Amis https://realini.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-kings-english-guide-to-modern-usage.html on this matter - author of soft porn tales   In the days of the communist regime, we had to resort to other sources for wet dreams, other activities and I remember Ion https://realini.blogspot.com/2023/10/ion-by-liviu-rebreanu-another-note-on.html a celebrated local opus, indeed, the author, Liviu Rebreanu, was part of the curriculum, one had to study him However, there were some hot scenes – I stopped before putting that in, realizing that they were far from titillating, in a wo

  On Solitude by Michel de Montaigne, author of one of the Greatest books of All Time, my note on some of this fleuve are at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-essays-of-michel-de-montaigne-on.html   10 out of 10   Michel de Montaigne was one of the brightest minds of all time, however much we could try and poke holes, or apply some of our standards to his writing and go ‘oho, this is not ethical, appropriate, inclusive or whatever today – for instance, I am thinking now of the passage where he says something along the lines of   ‘I am not interested if a coachman is clean, if the waiter is smart, I need them to do their job’, this is no way near what he said actually, but that is how it gets distorted in my head, and this serves as a warning, it is what you are about to get more of, if you stay on this page, we could try and entice you, twist this around- Hey, this is creative, inventive, you will get an unexpected, outré angle, even if it means reading with