Ataraxia

  The Inspector General by Nikolai Gogol   This is outrageously funny, but with a twist. You have all the good time in the world reading or listening to it, but you might also feel pity for the people of the world who live with such administrators and crooks. I know that one of my eyes cried with laughter and the other with bitterness. The regime I have known was communist…corrupt to the bone by definition. This was replaced, and I played my small “revolutionary” part, being mentioned in Newsweek, on about 12 (small) lines. But the system we have in place now, albeit way better than the one before, produces corruption like there is a huge conveyer belt, wherever there are public money, contracts and somehow, instead of reaching the infrastructure, health care projects they end up lining the pockets of big “wise guys” and politicians. One recent scandal had one of our Forbes richest embezzling money by cheating on …cancer patients. This makes the characters of The Inspector Gen...

  Therese Raquin by Emile Zola is one of The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, it is also ranked 734 th on The Greatest Books of All Time site, for more reviews: https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html   8 out of 10   Emile Zola https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2026/06/the-life-of-emile-zola-by-norman-reilly.html was not just an impressive author, with four books on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list, but also a formidable activist and progressive thinker, he was instrumental in overturning the horrible Dreyfuss verdict   The Dreyfuss Affair was a scandalous conspiracy (oh, how I hate this word, for conspiracy theories are the defining trait of MAGA and those alike, which represent the quintessential evil for yours truly) following which an innocent Jewish officer is sentenced for treason, just because he is of Judaic faith and a scape goat as such This was an immense scandal, dividing French society, I would ...

  A Thousand Years by Jane Smiley is The 1992 Winner of The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, it is also one of The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, ranked 974 th on The Greatest Books of All Time site, and more importantly for this corner here, this has entered Realini’s Top 1,000 Favorites – more reviews on those and more on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html and YouTube channel     10 out of 10   A Thousand Acres was so exhilarating and surprising, I have read Moo https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/moo-by-jane-smiley-included-on-1000.html by Jane Smiley and it was not exactly dazzling, and then the subject, people on a farm, was not enticing, it could have gone either way   Indeed, in my part of the world, we used to call ‘peasants’ (I still do, when drivers seem to run me over, on my bicycle) those who were ignorant, rudimentary, when in fact, these are the folks that provide the food…this no...

  Absolute Power written by William Goldman, directed by Clint Eastwood. William Goldman was one of the best writers in Hollywood, he has won two Oscars, for All The President’s Men and Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid – more notes on films are available at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html Absolute Power vs The Orange Caligula and MAGA 8 out of 10   Clint Eastwood https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/09/unforgiven-by-david-webb-peoples-my.html is one of the greatest film makers of all time, despite the fact that he is a republican, I just hope he is not MAGA (which for me means gaga, in the sense of mentally challenged), Unforgiven is one of my Top 50 Movies   Almost every day now, on the Public Station they have documentaries about thespians, directors, and Clint Eastwood was on the other night, with The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, his status could be called ‘polyamorous’, notwithstanding his conservatism, he ha...

Link the previous review Also Andes survival   On Friday 3 August 1973 three men sat in conference at one of The Inner London Crown Courts     War and Peace and marriage ‘all like that’ bad business Barrister John Strickland…he does not want to work in August, so he advises this mechanic to plead guilty, so that the case does not take him into next week…barrister said sentence would be supended, but it was not…Clare was tall attractive married tweleve years, eight years younger, but because of two children, breasts were loose, 32, he had a flaccid stomach, though handsome in court, balding under the wig Tom 10 and Anna 7 children Humor finds The Death of Ivan Ilych thinks maybe soviet dissident or a vegetarian guru in Mexico, it meant something to him…short story Family Happiness, but angry with Tolstoy because it is actually pessimistic, the title ironic – later, reads and is possessed by his fellow lawyer Ivan Ilych – maybe I did not live as I ought to h...

  Despre Fericirea Uitata a Vietii aka About The Forgotten Happiness of Life by Andrei Plesu – one of the greatest thinkers in the world, although he does not seem to exist on The Greatest Books of All Time, when I search for him there, they list Andrei Tarkovsky, granted, a formidable director, but they must improve that algorithm – you may want to visit my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html   10 out of 10   Andrei Plesu https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2023/11/toleranta-si-intolerabilulcriza-unui.html should have been the president of the USA, albeit as I write this, I smile and say to myself that anybody else should be that leader, expect the one they have – perhaps we must exclude those who are really crazier, few would be eliminated, but still…   I was quite upset a few days ago, when I saw that a compatriot is quite critical of Andrei Plesu, who is much like Socrates, a symbol of beatitude, an inspirat...