Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad – a work included on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read…Joseph Conrad has a few novels that appear on prestigious lists, Le Monde’s Best 100, The Top 100 Books of All Time http://realini.blogspot.com/2012/05/top-100-guardian-books-that-ive-read-so.html compiled with input from the luminaries of our age, Salman Rushdie, the late Umberto Eco, John Irving 8 out of 10

 Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad – a work included on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read…Joseph Conrad has a few novels that appear on prestigious lists, Le Monde’s Best 100, The Top 100 Books of All Time http://realini.blogspot.com/2012/05/top-100-guardian-books-that-ive-read-so.html compiled with input from the luminaries of our age, Salman Rushdie, the late Umberto Eco, John Irving

8 out of 10

 

 

This reader has had a tenuous connection with the acclaimed works of Joseph Conrad, after enjoying Nostromo – included on the list of Best 100 Books of All Time- I have hit a wall with Lord Jim – not even the adaptation for the big screen, with Peter O’Toole in the leading role has worked, but this is because I clearly have a limited capacity to enjoy some of the chefs d’oeuvre of humanity, Ulysses, Molloy http://realini.blogspot.com/2013/08/molloy-by-samuel-beckett.html The Tropic of Cancer, even the celebrated Moby Dick, the fundamental story that everyone loves (or do they) failed to impress upon me

 

I have enjoyed The Heart of Darkness http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-heart-of-darkness-by-joseph-conrad.html which is paramount for understanding the Western culture, colonialism, abuses that are exposed in the infamous figure of colonel Kurtz, as portrayed by majestic, bizarre Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now (‘the horror, the horror’) the white men that have taken natives in slavery, robbed Africa and other continents of their riches figure prominently in The Heart of Darkness…

The Secret Agent http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-secret-agent-by-joseph-conrad-in.html would be the closest to Under Western Eyes, for both narratives have at the center revolutionaries (depending on who is looking and from where, they would be labeled terrorists by dictators, and their means for achieving goals are rather violent) and the plans to assassinate enemies, which start in fact the story in Under Western Eyes

 

We have a strange coincidence (now that I have wrote strange coincidence, I am tempted to delete that, because if we say Russia, this would be a pattern, thus no coincidence, and strange in the context is when nothing violent happens, if a long peace is observed, otherwise, there are criminal leaders in the Kremlin, or most of the time, from Ivan the Terrible to Stalin, from Lenin to Putin…even Peter the Great http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/petru-by-vlad-zografi-we-must-note-that.html was so cruel as to behave appallingly towards his own son, the present despot has a long tradition of successors killing in a frenzy

The other day, two drones have flown over the Kremlin, and their propaganda machine was quick to blame Ukraine, and then put the blame on America, for they give the orders and Zelenski obeys, in the mad telling of the Putin sycophants, which say that this was an attempt to kill the new czar, something that is evidently silly…not that it would not make so much sense, strategically, politically, form a humanitarian point of view to eliminate the one responsible for the invasion, the death of so many innocents, applying principles of utilitarian philosophy http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/07/21-lessons-for-21st-century-by-yuval.html

 

There is the question asked on some lectures online, from Yale university, what would you do if a train is going to hit and kill a few people, but you have the option to press a lever and change the course, so that just one man is the victim, in other words, if by making one suffer, you save more, would you decide to spare the majority – it is not as simple as that, as is explained in books on the subject, take the instance when if one is hurt, he would reveal secrets of a safe and then one hundred or more felons would get the millions stored there, is it better to make one decent human suffer, so that a few hundred crooks benefit…for Putin though, the answer is clear, destroy the monster and end the war

Conrad was reputed to have detested Dostoevsky, but for all my hatred of Putin (and whoever supports him, we have some traitors at the Club downtown that I feel should be judged by the rules of the game their idol is playing, ergo, since Putin kills or jails opponents, the latest victim is Vladimir Kara Murza, let those fans of the Demon go to prison, we do not kill folks, and we could be generous and with munificence allow for a jail term of just a few years, not the thirty they throw in Moscow) I admired Dostoyevsky

 

Indeed, when we were teenagers, our august professor of literature, Anton Chevorchian, told as the story of the last three minutes, Fyodor Dostoyevsky has been condemned to death, just like the protagonist of Under Western Eyes, Victor Haldin, and indeed, opponents of the regime in general, in Russia or the Soviet Union, and he has three minutes before the final countdown, and he thinks of saying goodbye to family and friends, pass his life in front and enjoy a ray of sunshine falling on the top of a church…he is pardoned in the last moment and writes about the fact that facing death, people would rather live on a bare rock, in the middle of the ocean than die http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/06/crime-and-punishment-by-fyodor.html something which we read in the magnum opera of Dostoyevsky

It is astonishing to find that Russia has this troubled history, with so many rebellious figures trying to stop tyranny, and yet they do not manage to have democracy – there were the Yeltsin years, but alas, that was such a short period, and even worse, it made democracy look as terrible, with corruption, imploding economy and other plagues – the leaders that land in the Kremlin seem to be almost all savage beats, blood thirty and willing to do anything to stay at the top, no matter how much blood is spilled

 

Yuval Harari, one the greatest luminaries of the present, argues in The Economist that it would get worse, since Artificial Intelligence has hacked into our operating system, AI will be able to propose more stories like the Qannon poison, new religions and cults will appear, and political nonsense, toxic propaganda will reach new levels of vileness and they will manipulate so many, that our very future is at stake http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/homo-deus-brief-history-of-tomorrow-by.html

now for  a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world   – 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

 

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

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