The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni is found on the 435th place on The Greatest Books of All Time site and is part of The 1,000 Novels Everyone must Read compilation – I take some looks at these lists on my blog, at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/maybe-you-have-some-ideas-click-on-link.html where you find hundreds of reviews - 7 out of 10

 

The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni is found on the 435th place on The Greatest Books of All Time site and is part of The 1,000 Novels Everyone must Read compilation – I take some looks at these lists on my blog, at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/maybe-you-have-some-ideas-click-on-link.html where you find hundreds of reviews

 

7 out of 10

 

I will take the Holden Caulfield attitude https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/catcher-in-rye-by-jd-salinger-is-number.html on this and fuss about what is otherwise a recognized, excellent work, included on the GOAT new site, and the older 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list, plus some others, clearly part of the curriculum in Itakly

 

This new Greatest Books of All Time site puzzles me, for I get that they use a smart algorithm, taking into account several established canons, only you find some really unexpected works in the lowest or highest places – take Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie, a nice author, recently stabbed, lost an eye, but nevertheless

 

-          This work was not my cup of tea https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/midnights-children-by-salman-rushdie.html

 

Evidently, it is neither here nor there, if one reader says I disliked that, did not get it, was baffled and critics, other people love it, it is a relevant, established book, or even 41st on the GOAT site, as Midnight’s Children

With The Betrothed there is a similar experience or problem, what if everybody else says this wonderful, a classic, love story, great plot and all, if I do not see the point of going through 720 pages of going around in circles

 

You could have The Magic Mountain https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/magic-mountain-by-thomas-mann.html and then this is nec plus ultra, the crème de la crème, and you do not mind the 709 pages

 

-          On the contrary, you wish there were more

 

The same with Marcel Proust, my number one favorite author – though this place is shared with Kingsley Amis, Somerset Maugham, Antony Powell – who has written a roman fleuve, no less than 2,400 sublime pages

 

-          It is not an accident that he is at number 3 https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/le-temps-retrouve-by-marcel-proust.html on The Greatest Books of All Time site

 

However, you have Ulysses by James Joyce at two, a well-established, acclaimed magnum opera if there is one, and I will never be able to read that, though I have tried…for maybe ten or fifteen pages, probably a bit more

If Ulysees is overwhelming, I guess The Betrothed may present the other problem and then you are not in The Zone, with a Higher State of Consciousness, something you find explained in a classic of psychology called

 

-          Flow https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/flow-by-mihaly-csikszentmihalyi.html by one of the co-founders of positive psychology

 

There are some conditions for Maximum Experience aka Flow, and they would be: you are in control, nothing else matters, you have instant and constant feedback, there are clear goals, time is relative, it is autotelic and…

 

-          You are on the line between boredom and burnout

 

Alas, almost none of these are checked with The Betrothed – and similar books, for the under signed I mean – feedback is there, but signaling that I better take something else up, like the aforementioned Catcher in the Rye

To keep in the company of Holden Caulfield – who was a rather peculiar teenager, if a fictional one, so trying to emulate his tastes is ‘killing me, I god damn hate it’, to quote him – he mentions some great works

 

But he also says about Maugham and Of Human Bondage https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/of-human-bondage-by-somerset-maugham.html that he enjoyed it

Yet, he would not call Somerset Maugham, though the likeable, strange hero of Catcher in The rye likes to think of calling the writers he likes, well, whose books he had enjoyed, and we have an interesting take on those works

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/maybe-you-have-some-ideas-click-on-link.html  – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

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