Ataraxia

  Beauty and Sadness by Yasunari Kawabata, Nobel Prize Winner and author of The Sound of The Mountain, included on the 100 Greatest Books of All Time list, my note on this is at https://realini.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-sound-of-mountain-by-yasunari.html along with thousands of other reviews   7 out of 10   Beauty and Sadness is on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list, the work of a Nobel Prize Winner – though it is said it is not his best, that could be The Sound of The Mountain, after all, the latter made it into the Top 100 of All Time – ergo one should be in awe, inspired by it, that is if he or she has those positivity ingredients   Positivity https://realini.blogspot.com/2015/05/positivity-by-barbara-fredrickson-life.html is a classic of psychology – albeit classics change with time, what was a fundamental read once is now dejected, sometimes anathema, or just forgotten, an article in The Economist explains about the Mona Lisa, now the best kno...

  The British Museum Is Falling Down by David Lodge author of Paradise News, my note on this is at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/07/paradise-news-by-david-lodge-author-of.html where you find a few hundred reviews   8 out of 10   The British Museum Is Falling Down is the sixth book by David Lodge that I enjoy, first there was the mesmerizing, hilarious Changing Places - https://realini.blogspot.com/2021/05/about-magnum-opus-changing-places-by.html first installment in the Campus Trilogy, based on the writer’s own stint in America   However, The British Museum Is Falling Down is closer to How Far Can You Go https://realini.blogspot.com/2023/08/how-far-can-you-go-by-david-lodge.html both books have Catholicism and the doctrine that forbids birth control, of any kind, and the only way to limit the number of children is Natural Law That is, married couples – there is no other sanctioned kind of sex, and even the marital one is just meant to be ...

  Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer is included on The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, along with The Infamous Army by the same author   8 out of 10     Regency Buck is not A La Recherche du Temps Perdu https://realini.blogspot.com/2013/06/un-amour-de-swan-by-marcel-proust.html - the absolute best, nec plus ultra in my book, and for many experts – but it is pleasurable and what is more important, I could tune in to the station, the reader from LibriVox who volunteered   Listening to audiobooks for many years, and reading in my kindle, I have discovered that it is paramount to get access to the wisdom from a work, I compared this to listening to a radio, it can be Beethoven, the sixth or seventh, even the eighth, compositions that I like, but if I am not on the frequency of the station, it is just noise Regency buck managed that rare feat – at least recently – of making me listen, which is there in the formula for Flow aka Trance or Being in The Z...

  Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell, author of Cranford – my note on this is at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/09/cranford-by-elizabeth-gaskell-author-of.html where I have a few hundred other reviews   8 out of 10   With Ruth I have finished the four aces that Elizabeth Gaskell has on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list, I have started with North and South https://realini.blogspot.com/2019/11/north-and-south-by-elizabeth-gaskell.html and then continued, helped by the fact that these works are accessible at the LibriVox site, you can listen for free   Ruth is impressive, indeed, the thought comes to mind that this should be part of the curriculum, somehow, in that Ruth is a role model, inspiration, the ‘super star aka super heroine’, the equivalent of the Wonder Woman https://realini.blogspot.com/2018/07/wonder-woman-by-allan-heinberg-story-by.html This is also a narrative which exposes the indignity, humiliation, discrimination, abuse, insults t...

  Letters and Essays of Montaigne, Volume I by Michel de Montaigne, my notes on some of his essays are at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/02/on-friendship-by-michel-de-montaigne.html together with other reviews   10 out of 10   The Essays of Michel de Montaigne are among the 100 Greatest Books of All Time, and I am not talking my own notion of that, there is a serious list, created by The Norwegian Book Club, but not some amateur concoction, they have asked luminaries like Salman Rushdie, Umberto Eco, John Irving about this   Furthermore, reading those pages of wisdom is inspiring, useful, overwhelming and relevant, just like consulting the pages on Liars https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/10/on-liars-essays-of-michel-de-montaigne.html , America and our own land will have lections soon, and one is really a standout, but as a phony Orange Jesus is one of those names that keep coming up in these lines, because he serves as a paradigm, he is ...

  The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy, author of Anna Karenina, my note on this is at https://realini.blogspot.com/2023/03/anna-karenina-by-leo-tolstoy-one-of.html together with thousands of other reviews   9 out of 10   Leo Tolstoy was one of the most respected, best known writers ever, his Anna Karenina, War and Peace and The Death of Ivan Ilych https://realini.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-death-of-ivan-ilych-by-leo-tolstoy.html are among The 100 Greatest Books of All Time, although as a human being, the novelist was less resplendent   Anna Karenina is one of the most overwhelming love stories and ‘All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way’ the first line is one of the most used quotes, the fate of the heroine has stayed with me ever since high school, when the end (is there a need for a spoiler alert, there here it is) … Was used by the professor of literature, the great Anton Chevorchian, as a materia...

  Artists and Models by Anais Nin, author of La Cloche de Verre – my note of this is at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/10/la-cloche-de-verre-by-anais-nin-in.html together with more reviews   8 out of 10   The stories from The Delta of Venus are incredible, and the novel aka collection of short stories is included on the list of 1,000 novels Everyone Must Read, in some ways, I wish I could read this when I was an adolescent, trying to figure out what sex is, what women want, how to get close to them, and the like   Some decades back we were immersed in The Tales of Boccaccio, The Decameron https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/10/los-mejores-cuentos-eroticos-aka-best.html although we had no idea that they are among The 100 Greatest Books of All Time, we were just thrilled by the sexuality within Artists and Models has this model coming into the sculptor’s atelier and then Millar tells her about Montparnasse, and the sensual happenings from o...

  The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard is included on The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list, albeit it does not make it on my favorite books’ compilation   8 out of 10   In a way, it is a strange coincidence – I do not favor conspiracy theories, the Hand of God notions, or a sign that something is up, or down with juxtaposing names, elements – that I have started The Delta of Venus https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/10/the-model-and-other-stories-aka-by.html and then The Transit of Venus   Otherwise, they are both on the same, aforementioned list, and it could just be that I favored The Transit, after starting The Delta – the latter is still in processing stage, I have posted a couple of notes, because it is divided in stories, and the next one will be Models and Artists, but I have to take the Delta slowly It is so erotic, arousing, I wonder how the young ones absorb those descriptions, graphic, detailed, of oral, anal, all kinds of sex, in...

  Last Night in Soho by Edgar Wright and Krysty Wilson-Cairns   7 out of 10       Last Night in Soho had its premiere last night, On HBO, albeit it was launched in 2021, three years ago – this is a habit the network has here of declaring a Sunday prime time launch for something that is not decades old, but it would better be, if the quality were superior, only it is neither new, nor good enough, so ‘show me the money’   Thomasin McKenzie is clearly not one of my favorites, on the contrary, if she is in a movie, I better avoid it, because her effect is ‘altering the reality’, like Steve Jobs https://realini.blogspot.com/2018/10/leave-no-trace-written-and-directed-by.html but the result is not the making of some iPhone, it is just a flawed motion picture Leave No Trace was not a case in point, the theme there is interesting, a father aka Ben Foster takes his daughter, played by Thomasin McKenzie, into the woods, where they are supposed to Lea...

  Works of Claude Monet by Claude Monet – the ‘father’ of the Impressionism, a note on that is at https://realini.blogspot.com/2014/11/impressionists-by-antonia-cunningham.html where I have thousands of other reviews   10 out of 10   Claude Monet was (still is actually) my favorite painter, I even had my garden at Rosenau (and now   this one in Straulesti) modeled on what he had at Giverny, on a smaller scale, evidently, but trying to get plants, flowers from the list – before he died, he demanded there will be no flowers at his burial, saying morons could cut them from my garden – such as irises, Japanese acer, bamboos, which are now some ten meters high   As a child, he was a rebel, however much this sounds like an oxymoron – nonetheless, those I see around are spoiled and allowed to be violent, much more than active babies, they use firecrackers, pee everywhere, the teenagers, not the babies, use the foulest insults, etc. – but he did not go to s...