Ataraxia

  Of Love and Hunger by Julian MacLaren Ross is an absolute favorite of mine and one of the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read   10 out of 10   For me this novel was glorious, astounding, divine and we could continue up that path, it is the absolute joy that comes every few months – maybe it will happen more often, in between exciting, if not stupendous reads -and all the ingredients, and the ‘je ne sais quoi’ are mixed in to make this a book that I want to read again…   Soon, if possible, it is inspired by real life events, we understand that Julian MacLaren Ross has been a travelling salesman, and albeit we have artistic license, and maybe most of what we enjoy is juts made up, still, there is something from reality – in the introduction, the audience is told that the author discussed with his friend… Who will use this material, and it turns out that this phenomenal book is here to enchant forever – mind you, we have to be aware that this is a personal, ...

  Strange Interlude by Eugene O’Neill – it has won The 1928 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Eugene O’Neill has also written Desire Under the Elms https://realini.blogspot.com/2020/06/desire-under-elms-by-eugene-oneill-10.html and other remarkable plays   9 out of 10   If we look on the internet, we find some very interesting things about this drama, it was ‘one of the few modern plays to make extensive use of a soliloquy technique, in which the characters speak their inner thoughts to the audience’, in the original it is six hours long, hence it was produced on different days, mini-series they would call it today   The version I have heard was produced locally, with three of the celebrated thespians – if only in this realm, albeit Ion Caramitru, deceased about one year ago, is present in the first Mission Impossible, the first with Tom Cruise that is, directed by the mesmerizing De Palma https://realini.blogspot.com/2017/05/note-on-mission-impossible-directed-...

  Jane by Somerset Maugham, the author of The Point of Honor https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-point-of-honor-by-somerset-maugham.html   10 out of 10   The narrator meets Jane Fowler – the Jane from the title – when he visits his friend, Marion Towers, a middle-aged socialite, a woman who looks much younger, she is active, giving parties, exuberant, extrovert, and preoccupied with the upcoming visit of her sister-in-law, connected with her through her late husband   Marion Towers is kind to her relative, who is wealthy, but she middle-aged says ‘Jane is her cross’, there is no glamour, shine in this guest, so the host is bored – which means she cannot reach Flow – we can find about that in the classic Flow https://realini.blogspot.com/2016/10/flow-by-mihaly-csikszentmihalyi-this-is.html Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is the co-founder of positive psychology and has identified the conditions for Flow, Being in The Zone, Optimum Experience and they ...

  The Escape by Somerset Maugham, who is one of my favorite authors, he wrote The End of The Flight https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-end-of-flight-by-somerset-maugham.html and other remarkable stories   10 out of 10     The Escape will not please feminists, for this is about a man who maneuvers and ‘Escapes’ from this woman who wants to marry him, which is so misogynistic, retrograde, passe, right, only we need to use the standards of the time, and besides, it is not as if the male is presented as a role model, there is not time for that   Indeed, in this paragraph above I must have given in all the plot – a spoiler alert would hence come too late, but then at least you do not bother with the rest, if you had the intention – this is not just a short, but we could call it a ‘flash story’ maybe, which does not mean it is not wonderful, and somewhat tough on the female personage On the other hand, we could see Maugham as a ‘woman in a...

  The Consul by Somerset Maugham – one of my favorite writers https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-buried-talent-by-somerset-maugham.html - this is part of the collection Ten   10 out of 10   Somerset Maugham has written some spectacular works, some of them included in The Far Eastern Tales, wherein we have Before The Party https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/04/before-party-by-somerset-maugham-his.html which I have just finished, there seem to be a lot of problems in those colonies   About one century ago, one third of the world was under British rule, in Before the Party, we learn about one British woman who gets married to this representative of the crown in one of those remote places, where he gets drunk permanently, and the resident calls him to offer an ultimatum, you marry, or you get the sack And he goes back to Britain, where he marries – later on, the spouse tells her mother she needed not go to all that trouble to entice this ...

  The Point of Honor by Somerset Maugham – one of my two favorite authors https://realini.blogspot.com/2014/08/red-by-somerset-maugham.html - this is part of the Collection of Short Stories Ten   10 out of 10     It is always elating to find an old friend, and somehow, Somerset Maugham feels like someone very close – just like the quote at the end of this note, he offers a Garden of Eden, where the population is much more enticing, the events are compelling, this is great literature and art in general, as Malcolm Bradbury said   Then there is another wonderful work, According To Mark https://realini.blogspot.com/2023/02/according-to-mark-by-penelope-lively.html by astounding Penelope Lively, in which she says that the novelist is God, since he has absolute power over her/his creations They do exactly what the god says, the plan is followed and everything else is inspired by this divinity, another special thing in this same stupendous book was t...

  The Three Fat Women of Antibes by Somerset Maugham – another look at this tale is at https://realini.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-three-fat-women-of-antibes-by.html these are my favorite stories   10 out of 10   I have just finished reading Far Eastern Tales https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/04/neil-macadam-by-somerset-maugham-author.html and I am moving along to other magnum opera, from the same flamboyant, fantastic writer, continuing with short stories, embracing them for a second time, and then maybe some of the novels   Neil Macadam was one of the astounding narratives, wherein we have this young man, a replica of The Idiot https://realini.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-idiot-by-fyodor-dostoevsky-one-of.html by the phenomenal Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Prince Mishkin visiting the Far East, where he meets this Russian woman Darya is married to Angus Munro, the museum custodian where Neil aka Mishkin will work, but the Russian falls in love with the handso...