Ataraxia

  A String of Beads by William Somerset Maugham – author of The Vessel of Wrath – my note on that tale is at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-vessel-of-wrath-by-william-somerset.html where scores of other books are reviewed   10 out of 10   The premise of A String of Beads reminds me of another story by Somerset Maugham Mr. Know – All – which I reviewed at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/04/mr-know-all-by-somerset-maugham-another.html - Mr. Know All is, as the nick name suggests, one that thinks himself an expert, and he is one…   In both stories we have a string, and an evaluation that is more than surprising, given that the ladies who wear the jewels are not from the upper, rich class, and therefore could not afford expensive pearls, so when Mr. Know All makes an estimate that sounds exorbitant of the string which Mrs. Ramsay wears, we are surprised The husband laughs at the price tag, counters that it could not be, and even be...

  The Promise by William Somerset Maugham – author of A Man From Glasgow – my note on this is at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/07/a-man-from-glasgow-by-william-somerset.html where I have scores of other takes on Maugham and other favorites of mine   10 out of 10   ‘Lady Elizabeth Vermont was so lovely, it brought the tears to one's eyes, when she was young’ though we meet her when she is about to let loose – spoiler alert, this being such a short story, we might as well call it flash story, I will say what happens at the end, which is so near the start actually – and respect The Promise   She has married a much younger man, and thus it looks as if she has to say that she will set him free, if need be, and then he falls in love with a younger woman, and Lady Elizabeth Vermont is ready to respect their arrangement, which made me think of a previous narrative, from the same collection by Somerset Maugham There is a contrast between The Promise a...

  My New York Diary by Julie Doucet – considered a classic graphic novel, included on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list   8 out of 10   I am not a fan of graphic novels, although their brevity makes them easy to read – sure, there would be very long ones out there, but the few included on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read are accessible – and then it helps that we can see the rooms, people, background, and we get into the atmosphere, maybe we should call them immersive   Then the conclusions are simple, based on what you prefer, Magister Ludi Kingsley Amis https://realini.blogspot.com/2022/12/memoirs-by-kingsley-amis-author-of-take.html had trouble with Joyce (I do too), Proust (one of my favorites), Lawrence (I agree), Updike, Bellow and Nabokov, so ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ Julie Doucet writes about herself, and the first part is about her days in Montreal, when the characters seemed outré, asking to go to the park, then there i...

  Louise by William Somerset Maugham – author of The Poet – a note on that short story is at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-poet-by-william-somerset-maugham.html where there are dozens of other ‘reviews’   10 out of 10   Louise ‘was a frail, delicate girl with large and melancholy eyes’ before she married, her parents had taken special care of her, because she had had scarlet fever, and that left her with a weak heart, or maybe the wrong diagnosis   It could be a case of self-fulfilling prophecies, mentioned by Harvard Professor Tal Ben Shahar https://realini.blogspot.com/2016/04/choose-life-you-want-by-tal-ben-shahar.html in his lectures of positive psychology Incidentally, those are the most popular in the history of Harvard, one in five students enrolled, and you can find them on YouTube, available and extremely accessible, funny, and with the potential to change your life   The case of Roger Bannister is mentioned, a docto...

  The Vessel of Wrath by William Somerset Maugham – author of The Mother, my note on that short story is at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-mother-by-william-somerset-maugham.html where there are scores of other lines on dozens of his stories   10 out of 10     It intrigued me to imagine what happens after the end of The Vessel of Wrath – therefore, there are some qualms here, would a spoiler alert be needed, is anybody reading beyond the first line, and then if I muse about after the finale, who is to be upset, I am moving out of this tale, granted, it will be into another one by Maugham   Thus, I was thinking that the characters of this story could well move into another one, by the same author, at least the two most important, Ginger Ted and Miss Jones, they could change places, or follow the destiny of Millicent and Harold, from Before The Party, looked at here https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/04/before-party-by-somerset-...

  Paradise News by David Lodge – author of the magnum opus Changing Places https://realini.blogspot.com/2021/05/about-magnum-opus-changing-places-by.html and other excellent books   8 out of 10   David Lodge has enchanted this reader with The Campus Trilogy, especially the first two volumes, Changing Places and Small World https://realini.blogspot.com/2021/05/enraptured-in-small-world-by-david.html the last, Nice Work, might have been a case of too high expectations, and I did not find it so exhilarating   To mention the last, but not least of the list of four novels (fie with Paradise News) How Far Can You Go https://realini.blogspot.com/2023/08/how-far-can-you-go-by-david-lodge.html was an exuberant satire, looking at religious people trying to find where the limits imposed by faith end, what liberties they can take… Religion is present in Paradise News, in the first place, the hero, Bernard Walsh, is an agnostic Catholic priest – well, as agnostic...

  A Man From Glasgow by William Somerset Maugham – one of the greatest novelists of all time, author of The Poet https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-poet-by-william-somerset-maugham.html and other superb works   10 out of 10   Somerset Maugham is a fantastic writer, one of my two favorites, although I have found recently that he was critical of Magister Ludi Kingsley Amis   https://realini.blogspot.com/2023/03/lucky-jim-by-kingsley-amis-author-of.html - well, not really attacking another of my gods, but expressing some sort of puzzlement   This has been a wonderful summer, in that I have started again the complete stories, with gems like Footprints In The Jungle, wherein we meet, with the narrator, a couple of gentle, likeable people, Olive and Theo Cartright, playing bridge and being described as essential for the community, viewed very well by the community Except that Olive had been married to Reggie Bronson, a planter in Malaya, wh...

  Alberta and Jacob by Cora Sandel – a magnum opus that is included on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list, in the State of the Nation chapter   10 out of 10   Alberta and Sandel is a spectacular chef d’oeuvre, celebrated as one of the greatest books to come from Scandinavia, where the narrative is placed, in the northern part of Norway, a small town, where you somehow encounter people of a lower class, that was my impression anyway, it feels as if everyone wants to leave   It is not exactly a place where one gets exiled, but the south appears to be glorified, it is not a paradise, but then the climate in those parts is harsh – probably not so much now, what with climate change, albeit we do have extremes, in our city we experienced weeks of forty degrees Celsius, unheard of until now They get excited on the other hand by the arrival of spring, I am not sure they have summer there, and the flowers, the signs of good weather – as for flowers, Albert...

  Fair Stood The Wind For France by HE Bates, author of Love For Lydia https://realini.blogspot.com/2022/08/love-for-lydia-by-he-bates-is-one-of.html   10 out of 10   Fair Stood The Wind For France is a spectacular novel, and if I were religious, I would say thank God for that, for it comes at the right time, after trying to enjoy Joseph Andrews, The Castel of Otranto, and The Connecticut Yankee and failing, this is a miraculous reminder that I can still read with immense pleasure a wondrous novel   I have already found exulting Love for Lydia, by the same mesmerizing author, and both books are included on the list of 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, though one in the Love, and the other the War section – the narrative takes place during World War II, in France, as the title suggests, where an airplane crash lands John Franklin is the hero of the saga, and the pilot who has his arm so badly injured that it will pose a great threat – I am already anticip...

  The Mother by William Somerset Maugham author of The Judgement Seat https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-judgement-seat-by-william-somerset.html and other superb tales   10 out of 10   This short story reminds me of Mother! A horror movie with Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem, following the shooting – actually, more likely during it – the star and the director became a couple, but then the man kept on (and apparently on and on) about the film, to the point where the female lead would have enough   Wow, I managed to move away from the subject, before I really got started, so now you know that this is not the kind of serious note you need to consult, indeed, it is much better to take a professional critique of this and any other book The Mother is tragic, I can even try and think about a humorous element and then there may be none, albeit Somerset Maugham pours in mirth frequently, we have this woman moving in a new neighborhood, and we wo...