Ataraxia

  Orphan Bride by Sara Seale – this is one of The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, included in the Love Section 9 out of 10     This is a remarkable, wonderful novel which has only about forty ratings and maybe twenty reviews on Goodreads (now we can add one to these numbers) an incredible fact, if we look at what Dan Brown, other lesser authors have – millions of ratings and multitudes of opinions expressed – it is a pity that such wondrous work goes unnoticed   Orphan Bride takes the Pygmalion myth and somehow tells it again, with Julian Dane in the role of the sculptor, and Jennet Brown would have the part of Galatea – in the old legend, Pygmalion creates this beautiful statue and falls in love with it, only because she is made of stone, he asks the gods to give her life and they oblige In psychology, there is The Pygmalion Effect – researchers went into schools in California to study what happens if they tell teachers that three students will perfor...

  The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas https://realini.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-three-musketeerstwenty-years.html 9 out of 10 Looking at the narrative from a more modern perspective, allegedly     Once upon a time, in adolescence, this story was an enchantment enchantment to read, only with time and repeated viewing, we could arrive to déjà vu, something that seemed to have happened, when watching the newest adaptation of the classic, with some of the crème de la crème, titans of French and world cinema   Vincent Cassel is Athos, and very fast, he is sentenced to death by beheading (which is reserved for nobles at that point, the rest are hanged by the neck) very fast, thus setting the start for one of the threads of the plot, his comrades in arms will try hard to get him off the hook, it is most surely a frameup They have found a killed woman next to this role model (wait a second, did I say that, but then we need to adapt to the standards of the...

  Light Years by James Salter – this is one of The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read – James Salter also has The Hunters on the same list 8 out of 10     I have read The Hunters by James Salter and enjoyed it so much that I though Light Years will bring about the same buoyancy, exhilaration, halcyon days, but alas, I did not get it, there is the issue of coming with too high expectations (some positive psychology book recommends that we lower the expectations, only I forgot which one is it) and then I thought of some criteria, even a standard introduction for such cases   Maybe first of all, Blink -The Power of Thinking Without Thinking http://realini.blogspot.com/2013/05/blink-power-of-thinking-without.html by Malcolm Gladwell and The Thin Slicing Theory come to mind – we form opinions in less than a minute, without thinking, and you get from Blink the explanations, situations, The Harding Effect and so much more- if applied to Light Years and other works...

  Jesus Revolution – How God Transformed an Unlikely Generation and How He Can Do It Again by Greg Laurie, Ellen Vaughn- another look at this story is here - https://notesaboutfilms.blogspot.com/2023/04/71-out-of-100-for-jesus-revolution.html This is an attempt to look at that Jesus Revolution versus the New One, focused on the Orange Jesus aka The Confidence Man and an absolute calamity 8 out of 10     However interesting this narrative could be, there are some tragic undertones, at least for the undersigned, who is not religious – in fact, if we are to quote the Magister Ludi Kingsley Amis, he said ‘it is not just that I do not believe in him, I hate him’ or words to that effect http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/12/memoirs-by-kingsley-amis-author-of-take.html this does not apply to me, but I like the joke   If you are interested in what I have to say about the Jesus Revolution, though I do not see why, then the conclusion is this – it is not exhilara...

  The Essays of Michel de Montaigne – Cannibals – The Essays of Montaigne is one of Top 100 Greatest Books in History http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-classic-chef-doeuvre-les-essais-de.html the list is at The Guardian site 10 out of 10     This is one of the greatest works you could read – The Norwegian Book Club has asked the most prominent, respected authors of the age, Umberto Eco, Salman Rushdie, Nadine Gordimer, John Irving and scores of others to list their preferred masterpieces, and the result has Don Quixote at the top and The Essays, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Marcel Proust, Jane Austen, James Joyce, Scott F Fitzgerald on the list   One of the themes that astounding Michel de Montaigne takes on is that of cannibalism, and this is big right now, as Netflix has had the premiere of The Society of The Snow, nominated for The Golden Globe and other prizes, about the real life airplane crash that took place in The Andes, already adapted for the scre...

    I am not sure if this motion picture should be rated as horror, however inspirational, stupendous it might be, spoiler alert – you should not read these lines, the conclusion over the feature is pronounced already,for   this is an incredible, if absolutely real, saga which has brave, resilient, intrepid, generous, strong, determined, uber mensch and super women, crashing on top of the Andes...   The previous cinematic adaptation of the real tragedy was Alive http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/05/alive-based-on-book-by-piers-paul-read.html with Ethan Hawke as Nando Parrado, one of the heroes of the tale, an impressive achievemnt, which somehow was less noticed, albeit i see it as just as good, telling much the same thing, insisting on Nando and his expereince more   Furthermore, Alive had a script by Piers Paul Read, who wrote a book about the same astonishing plane crash and the ordeal of the survivors, and this author is a favorite and a glorious...

  The Hunters by James Salter aka James A. Horowitz – a superb novel that is included on The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read List 10 out of 10     The Hunters is a mesmerizing, sublime masterpiece, that is honest, a glorious pleasure to read, that is based on the experience of the author, who has been a pilot who was in Korea, between February and August 1952, what we learn from the book is mostly what has happened to James Salter who becomes Captain Cleve Connell   We first meet the hero in Japan, where he is waiting for orders to fly to Korea and join the fight, the communist North, backed by China, flying the Soviet MIG planes was trying to occupy all the peninsula, and transform it into a tyranny, just like the one we see today, led by a despotic dynasty – so much for the proclaimed ‘all animals are equal’- we know from George Orwell http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/09/nineteen-eighty-four-by-george-orwell.html that ‘some animals are more equal than ...

  Eileen Screenplay by Luke Goebel and Ottessa Moshfegh – you find my view on the Nominee for the 2015 Booker Prize Eileen by Otessa Moshfegh here http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/04/thoughts-on-eileen-by-ottessa-moshfegh.html   9 out of 10     I have been impressed by the novel that has inspired the film of the same name, co-written by the author of the Booker Prize nominee, and the adaptation is a very good motion picture, a good omen for 2024…it is the first film launched this year that I see, looking forward to Society of the Snow, which premiered on Netflix, but have not seen yet – the saga of the passengers that had to survive in the Andes   Eileen Dunlop is the main character of the novel and film, in the latter she is portrayed by Thomasin McKenzie, a talented young thespian, born in New Zealand, seen recently in Leave No Trace http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/10/leave-no-trace-written-and-directed-by.html a film where she lives in a nation...

  The Essays of Michel de Montaigne, on cannibalism, and more – another take on this chef d’oeuvre is here http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/07/from-thelist-of-top-100-works-in-world.html   10 out of 10     The Essays of Michel de Montaigne is one of The Top 100 Books of All Time, as compiled by The Norwegian Book Club – you find it on The Guardian site and elsewhere – when they have asked some of the luminaries of our age, Salman Rushdie, Umberto Eco, John Irving, Nadine Gordimer with others, who listed the books they esteem most, Don Quixote (not a favorite here) coming up on top, at number one   Michel de Montaigne offers in this magnum opus insight into a variety of subjects, one could say there is no domain that is not explored, with 1344 pages, it may sound as if it is conceivable, and we have to consider that so many centuries ago, the knowledge of humanity was limited and perhaps we have most of it in The Essays A gentleman with interesting...