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MOBY-DICK REVIEW

It is difficult to separate Moby-Dick, the book, from Moby-Dick, the whale. Both are epic in scale, and both have been met with wildly different perceptions and interpretations. You only need to browse Amazon reviews to get a taste. I’ve now read this book twice, and I can’t say that the second time around was any easier than the first, though the second time was a different experience. The first time I read the book, I was awed by the construction, the different styles of writing, and the numerous, mind-numbing asides that Ishmael takes with the reader. On my second time through, I found myself thinking again and again about just how sad it all was. Many years have passed between my first reading and my second and, in those years, I’ve come a very long way in how I view the animals we share this planet with. Where once I was content to view the whale as an adversary or antagonist, I now see a creature simply trying to defend himself. I also see a human species hell-bent on extracting every last living creature from the sea. And, worse, spinning the entire endeavor into some high-seas adventure. I can’t say with any degree of certainty that Herman Melville felt sad for the whales — or guilty for his role while he worked on a whaling ship. But several times during the novel I got the feeling he was struggling with this issue. On occasion, Ishmael imagined the oceans from the whale’s perspective, and was often amazed by the great intelligence, empathy, and bravery the species displayed through their actions. Melville writes: The more I consider this mighty tail, the more do I deplore my inability to express it. At times there are gestures in it, which, though they would well grace the hand of man, remain wholly inexplicable. In an extensive herd, so remarkable, occasionally, are these mystic gestures, that I have heard hunters who have declared them akin to Free-Mason signs and symbols; that the whale, indeed, by these methods intelligently conversed with the world. Nor are there wanting other motions of the whale in his general body, full of strangeness, and unaccountable to his most experienced assailant. Dissect him how I may, then, I but go skin deep. I know him not, and never will. But if I know not even the tail of this whale, how understand his head? much more, how comprehend his face, when face he has none? Thou shalt see my back parts, my tail, he seems to say, but my face shall not be seen. But I cannot completely make out his back parts; and hint what he will about his face, I say again he has no face. In one passage in particular he calls out not only whale hunters specifically but carnivores in general: It is not, perhaps, entirely because the whale is so excessively unctuous that landsmen seem to regard the eating of him with abhorrence; that appears to result, in some way, from the consideration before mentioned: i.e. that a man should eat a newly murdered thing of the sea, and eat it too by its own light. But no doubt the first man that ever murdered an ox was regarded as a murderer; perhaps he was hung; and if he had been put on his trial by oxen, he certainly would have been; and he certainly deserved it if any murderer does. Go to the meat-market of a Saturday night and see the crowds of live bipeds staring up at the long rows of dead quadrupeds. Does not that sight take a tooth out of the cannibal’s jaw? Cannibals? who is not a cannibal? I tell you it will be more tolerable for the Fejee that salted down a lean missionary in his cellar against a coming famine; it will be more tolerable for that provident Fejee, I say, in the day of judgment, than for thee, civilized and enlightened gourmand, who nailest geese to the ground and feastest on their bloated livers in thy pate-de-foie-gras. But Stubb, he eats the whale by its own light, does he? and that is adding insult to injury, is it? Look at your knife-handle, there, my civilized and enlightened gourmand, dining off that roast beef, what is that handle made of?—what but the bones of the brother of the very ox you are eating? And what do you pick your teeth with, after devouring that fat goose? With a feather of the same fowl. And with what quill did the Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Cruelty of Ganders formally indite his circulars? It is only within the last month or two that the society passed a resolution to patronize nothing but steel pens. I suspect, based on Melville’s earlier writings, that he initially set out to write another epic adventure — the type of book that always sells — but at some point found himself writing something quite different, less black and white, more ambitious. Now, is this book eco-literature? Absolutely. While you could argue that the book glorifies whaling, I get the sense — certainly the second time around — that Melville was playing more the role of the documentary filmmaker, displaying the gruesomeness of it all. I’m not sure he was trying to turn people against whaling — for the industry was already seeing its days numbered at that point in history — but I think he was deeply conflicted about the industry and America’s role in leading it. I think Ahab holds the clue to the novel, a man obsessed with the “one that got away.” And this obsession is with our culture still. When I finished reading the book I noticed that the Spielberg film Jaws was on the television. And in that movie we see the very same dynamic at work. This demonization of nature, this never-ending need to control that which cannot be controlled, and the irrepressible need for humans to create monsters where monsters do not exist. This text from Ahab’s perspective: God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates. From sharks to whales to seals and, on land, to wolves and bears and even deer –the pattern repeats. I believe eco-literature has an important role to play in making this pattern apparent to people so that we may finally one day break it. As an aside, for years I believed that Moby-Dick received bad reviews simply because the public wasn’t ready for such a “modern” work. But I recently read that London readers first experienced a book that was missing entire sections, including the epilogue. At any rate, the book is a fascinating and challenging read for both its glimpse into the past and its possibility for changing the future.

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NEUTOMANCER-REVIEW

When I started my deep dive into sci-fi reading a couple of years back, a friend of mine, Andrew Schmitt, recommended that I read Neuromancer by William Gibson. While some shy away from a classic written 30 years ago, I looked at it as required reading if I wanted to really understand the genre. Plus, the book came highly recommended, which has become one of the key criteria in screening my extensive reading list that I’ve been stumbling through this year. To say that Neuromancer is a classic sci-fi novel is an understatement. It really needs to be required reading for anyone venturing into the genre. In addition to coining the term “cyberspace”, there are many other themes that have been taken forward in other science fiction works. As I was reading the book, I could see how the book influenced classic science fiction movies like The Matrix. The themes present in other books are too numerous to mention. Without getting into too much detail on the plot, the story centers around a young man named Case who made a living cruising through cyberspace as a thief for hire. His ability to jack into the net is compromised after he is caught skimming from one of his employers, and his desire to get back to cyberspace leads him on an adventure spanning both the real and virtual worlds. As with many classics, Neuromancer is not always the easiest book to read. It requires all your attention as Gibson alternates between events in the real world and events occurring in cyberspace. There are also imaginative backdrops as you are taken from dystopian environments on Earth to science fiction, fantasy-like environments in space. It’s a book that engages both your imagination and your intellect as you immerse yourself in the settings that Case is navigating and negotiating his way around and through. It also challenges you to consider what lies ahead for humans as many of Gibson’s characters exhibit some form of machine augmentation. I found it both interesting and amazing as to the possibilities that Gibson envisioned, especially given that the book was written in 1984. While it took a little bit of time for me to get my head around the story, it was worth it. After a little build-up at the beginning, the pace quickens, and Gibson keeps you on your toes throughout. I found both the characters and stories unique and unlike other books I’ve read lately. Whereas most books follow a predictable pattern with predictable characters, I found Neuromancer’s characters and story unique. It was a refreshing change and helped me enjoy the book even more. It’s required reading for anyone who is a science fiction fan. And if you are just starting out in science fiction, then move this one to the top of your list. Don’t wait two years like I did. You won’t be disappointed.

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1Q84 REVIEW

One of the many longueurs in Haruki Murakami’s stupefying new novel, “1Q84,” sends the book’s heroine, a slender assassin named Aomame, into hiding. To sustain her through this period of isolation she is given an apartment, groceries and the entirety of Marcel Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past.” For pity’s sake, if you have that kind of spare time, follow her lead. Aomame has the chance to read a book that is long and demanding but well worth the effort. The very thought of Aomame’s situation will pain anyone stuck in the quicksand of “1Q84.” You, sucker, will wade through nearly 1,000 uneventful pages while discovering a Tokyo that has two moons and is controlled by creatures that emerge from the mouth of a dead goat. These creatures are called Little People. They are supposed to be very wise, even though the smartest thing they ever say is “Ho ho.” Mr. Murakami is supposed to be very wise too. But “1Q84” has even his most ardent fans doing back flips as they try to justify this book’s glaring troubles. Is it consistently interesting? No, but Mr. Murakami is too skillful a trickster to rely on conventional notions of storytelling. Is it a play on Orwell’s “1984?” Vaguely, but don’t make close comparisons. Is it science fiction? Well, there are those two moons, plus several references to Sonny and Cher. And is it actually about anything? Don’t be silly. Mr. Murakami is far too playful and allusive an artist to be restricted by a banal criterion like that one. A word about packaging: The three volumes that have been collected for American readers in the composite version of “1Q84” hang together about as well as the three parts of Roberto Bolaño’s similarly published (and far better) “2666” did. Each of these omnibus books has bright, incisive passages interspersed with abundant filler. But there is no overarching narrative idea to make either book more than the sum of its parts, although in the case of “1Q84” there is a startlingly clever Chip Kidd cover to create an air of the irresistible. The actual text? Not so much. “1Q84” vacillates between two characters, Aomame and Tengo, who have a mysterious connection. Naturally Mr. Murakami will forestall explaining what the bond is for as long as he can. So Tengo is first seen being roped into a literary scheme. He knows an editor, Komatsu, who knows a 17-year-old girl who has written a remarkable story called “Air Chrysalis.” But the story could be made even better if Tengo would agree to ghostwrite it. Then Komatsu will enter it in a literary contest, and the girl will surely win a prize and create a media frenzy. As Komatsu keeps pointing out with unseemly eagerness, “Air Chrysalis” will be very big — Murakami-type big — on the best-seller lists. So Tengo meets the girl, who is called Fuka-Eri, although that is not her real name. Holding real names in reserve throughout most of the book is one of Mr. Murakami’s creative ploys. Fuka-Eri speaks in an odd, uninflected way and has nicely shaped breasts, which are frequently mentioned. So are Tengo’s mother’s breasts, which have left him with a strange fixation. Meanwhile Aomame embarks on one of her assassination assignments. (She specializes in killing men who abuse women.) And even though she is a killer, she makes friends with a policewoman, with whom she hosts “intimate but fully erotic all-night sex feasts.” Her nicely shaped breasts are talked about too. These elements are not necessarily indications of the book’s eroticism, which can be more than a little peculiar. (“It was like her pubic hair was part of her thinking process.”) They have more to do with Mr. Murakami’s determination to describe, inventory and echo just about everything that he chooses to mention. Characters repeat one another frequently, in a manner that can be seen as either incantatory or numbing, depending on your patience level. We learn about Tengo’s pajamas, and we learn what Aomame eats to prevent constipation. We learn about goldfish and a rubber plant. We learn that the second moon, when it starts appearing in the novel, looks mossy and green. The unconvincing longing between Tengo and Aomame is mostly left to simmer by Mr. Murakami. But there is a centerpiece when Aomame makes contact with the large, powerful and fearsome figure known as Leader. He is in charge of one of several religious cults that figure in the book. And Aomame is sent to kill him. She has been told that he is a rapist, and that he abuses the preteenage girls who are cult members. But his real story is different, and it has to do with the powers of communication that keep the world afloat. In one of the many moments that suggest Mr. Murakami takes some of his cosmic rules from Kurt Vonnegut’s playbook, there turn out to be people known as receivers and others known as perceivers. The balance between them must be exquisitely maintained, or else — who knows? We never exactly find out what is at stake. It used to be customary, in a book of this magnitude, to explain unanswered questions and tie up loose ends. Mr. Murakami clearly rejects such petty obligations, and he leaves many of the parallels in “1Q84” cryptic and dead-ended. He perceives, and we receive, and the reception isn’t all that clear. But 925 pages go by. And somehow, to quote Mr. Murakami as he quotes Sonny and Cher, for reasons that perhaps only he understands, the beat goes on.

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The Host-Review

"The Host" was Stephenie Meyer's first adult novel. The human race has been taken over by parasitic but peace-loving aliens called souls. Melanie, the human host of a soul called Wanderer, is resistant and refuses to fade away, leading Wanderer on a journey unlike any she's experienced in her nine lives in other hosts' bodies around the universe. "The Host" is not Stephenie Meyer's best work. While the premise is intriguing, the story is slow, and the characters are under-developed. It was released in May 2008. Melanie is part of a human group resisting the alien invasion of Earth. She gets caught, and a soul named Wanderer is inserted into her body. Melanie's consciousness won't fade away, however, and her thoughts and memories move Wanderer to love the people Melanie once loved. This leads Wanderer to set out to find her host body's family, and what follows is the story of her time with the humans of the resistance movement. "The Host" is marketed as "science fiction for people who don't like science fiction." This is true. The science fiction aspect is that it involves aliens who possess technology well advanced beyond ours. But it's firstly a love story on several levels. The book explores friendship and familial love as well as romantic love in likely and unlikely places. Ultimately, it's about the power and hope of love. "The Host" brings up good discussion topics, such as the depth and range of human emotions, and whether and when it's right for one society to impose its standards on another, especially at the cost of sentient life. Though the premise is interesting, the story itself falls flat. You can set it down and not have a compelling reason to return to it. The action picks up about two-thirds of the way through the book if you make it that far. Many of the characters, including main ones, seem like caricatures and stereotypes. If you are looking for something as gripping and intoxicating as Meyer's "Twilight" series, this is not it.

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Jurassic park-Review

Let me just state that while Jurassic Park is a science fiction novel, it has elements that could be considered urban fantasy. Now, I have to say that this review will be super biased because this is the book that started my love of science fiction and intensified my love of fantasy. Dr. Alan Grant and grad student Ellie Sattler are paleontologists at the forefront of their field. John Hammond, an eccentric millionaire, has funded their digs, for unknown reasons. Grant and Sattler are on the verge of discovering a complete juvenile Velociraptor skeleton—the first of its kind— when Hammond calls and essentially demands they come visit Isla Nublar where he has built a nature preserve. The two reluctantly agree, and fly out to the island with Dennis Nedry, a computer technician, and Ian Malcolm, a chaos mathematician. Malcolm insists—even without knowing what is housed on the nature preserve—that due to chaos theory, the nature preserve will fail. Upon landing and seeing the results of InGen's bioengineering, Malcolm's predictions turn dire. Hammond has also invited his grandchildren, Tim and Lex, to come visit the preserve as well. The group begins to tour the facilities, and that is where the complications begin to arise. No matter how many times I read this book, Crichton's writing manages to still give me a feeling of dread and keep me on the edge of my seat. The use of his medical knowledge combined with the fantastical element of dinosaurs as the villains really makes it come alive. In fact, until last summer, I had refused to watch the movies because I felt that there was absolutely no way for the movie to even come close to portraying the story. This is definitely a modern classic. This is the book that I recommend to anyone that asks me for a book to read. There are very few books that I can actively read over and over again and still find them as amazing as I did the first time I read them, and this is definitely one of those books.

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Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World-Haruki Murakami

This early work by Murakami gives tantalizing glimpses of the otherworldly imagination he'd hone to near-perfection in later novels. Indeed, said imagination appears to have sprung fully formed from his cortex. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World may not always be consistent in tone or execution, but it's often brilliant and always utterly unlike most anything else on the racks. It's like a game of hide-and-go-seek in the playground of the mind, where the true nature of self is just a little too well hidden to be found. Philip K. Dick fans and those who enjoy stories that get off on exploring inner rather than outer space ought to have a whale of a time with this. Murakami's whimsical adventure is a not-quite-noir, not-quite-cyberpunk, not-quite-mythological mashup whose hero is, quite literally, searching for his own mind. It runs two parallel storylines. In Hard-Boiled Wonderland, the unnamed narrator is a "calcutec" working for the System, in a near-future (?) alternate Japan where information is the ultimate currency. The System's chief rival is the Factory, which employs Semiotecs. Their goal is to pirate knowledge produced by the System and make it available on the black market, while saving the choicest pieces for themselves. That this story predated the p2p craze by nearly a decade really raises my estimation of Murakami's skills at innovative thinking quite a few notches. Our hero is like a biological encryption device, running coded information through one hemisphere of his brain, scrambling it, and spitting it out the other. This talent was achieved through a procedure in which his "core consciousness" was isolated and firewalled, so to speak, deep within his brain, destroying many of his memories into the bargain. When he undertakes a delicate job for a rather wacked-out professor who's developed a means of deadening sound, he finds himself up to his eyeballs in a crazy plot and a race against time to stop a process that could lead to the destruction of his core consciousness itself. The concurrent storyline, The End of the World, has, again, an unnamed narrator with total amnesia about his previous life. He finds himself in a mysterious walled town whose few inhabitants lack normal emotional responses, and golden-furred unicorns roam the fields only to freeze to death in the winter. It soon becomes clear what this town is: the other narrator's isolated core consciousness. But it's still a brilliantly rendered literary device, as our hero, throughout both of his storylines, undertakes perilous journeys — one underground, in a sequence reminiscent of ancient mythological voyages into the underworld, and the other solely within the confines of his walled boundaries, where dangerous areas like the deep eastern forest and the whirlpool represent hazardous regions of inner turmoil — all in the goal of piecing himself back together. There's a lot of full-on comedy at work here, particularly in the Hard-Boiled chapters, where several absurd supporting characters turn up to riff on the tropes of the noir genre. There are the obligatory heavies who turn up at our narrator's apartment to threaten him with nothing in particular, then trash the place just to do it; and the femme fatale in the form of the professor's plump, flighty, and not especially vampish daughter. This tone is contrasted, sometimes jarringly but never without interest, with the haunting, elegiac and almost narcotic mood of The End of the World, where the imagery often evokes a dream environment where you know you can't stay, but somehow can't bear to leave. Thematically, Murakami explores the nature of selfhood, the way in which who we are is entirely defined by the experiences and memories that comprise our consciousness. Take away all memory, and what kind of person would you have? How would that person possess any kind of individuality, without recall to the events that shape personal development? Of course, Murakami never makes the mistake of taking himself too seriously when playing around with this stuff, and the result is a delectable little literary eccentricity.

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Gullivers Travels-Jonathan Swift review

Lemuel Gulliver is an educated and trained surgeon. He speaks to the readers retelling his experiences at sea. Presented as a simple traveler’s narrative, Gulliver’s adventures are divided into four parts. The first part is situated in Lilliput where he finds himself in the company of thousands of miniature people called Lilliputians. The second is on the peninsula-type land of Brobdingnag, an opposite world from Lilliput where Gulliver becomes the Lilliputian and everyone is a giant to him. The third part moves to the island of Laputa, a floating island inhabited by theoreticians and academics which oppresses the land below, called Balnibarbi. Finally in the fourth part he arrives in an unknown land. This land is populated by Houyhnhnms, the rational-thinking horses who rule, and by Yahoos, the inferior brutish servants to the horses who bear the image of a human. Gulliver’s Travels was an extremely controversial book from its very first publication in 1726. Ever since, many of its sections were deleted and it was also often set aside as a book for children in an attempt to depoliticize its interpretations and camouflage its insight into colonial practice. It was not until almost ten years after its first printing that the book appeared with the entire text that Swift had originally intended it to have. However it remains Swift's most prolific and well-known work, spanning a literary sixteen years in physical journey and countless more in personal exploration. Gulliver’s travels is both a satire on human nature and a parody of the “traveler’s tale” literary sub genre. The fascination of the tale lies in the fact that although every phase seems immediately comprehensible, the whole subject matter is endlessly complex. The novel offers a clear parody of colonialism and its working against what is conventionally known. Swift takes up the different ideas surrounding the working of colonialism and gradually debunks them by offering a reversal of scales. He redirects the tropes of colonial discourse and turns them against the masters in a very adroit manner. And interestingly all this is done with great wit and slapstick humor: be it Gulliver’s urinating to extinguish the fire or the experiments taking place at the Grand Academy of Lagado. The novel is arguably Swift’s greatest satiric attempt to “shame men out of their vices”. The structure and the choice of metaphors also serve Swift’s purpose of attacking politics, religion, morality, human nature and of course colonialism which is at the heart of the novel. Swift clearly undercuts the ideas endorsed by colonialism by putting forth a reverse scenario and demonstrating how the truth about people and objects is heavily influenced by the observer’s perception. In Gulliver’s Travels the scales are manipulated to show the politics of representation thus bringing forth a comfortless and disturbing satire.

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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Book Review

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Book Review Once upon a time, children’s stories were dull tales written to impart morals to young minds. In 1865, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, writing under the name Lewis Carroll, changed that. He introduced the world to a nonsensical cast of characters: A white rabbit with a pocket watch, a caterpillar smoking a hookah and a brave, befuddled heroine named Alice. One hundred and fifty years later, the influence of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” has spread far and wide. The story has been translated into about 100 languages, adapted to the screen dozens of times and explored in visual art, opera and ballet. Join Diane and her guests for this month’s Readers’ Review: The whimsical appeal of Alice in Wonderland. Carroll's book is episodic and reveals more in the situations that it contrives than in any serious attempt at plot or character analysis. Like a series of nonsense poems or stories created more for their puzzling nature or illogical delight fullness, the events of Alice's adventure are her encounters with incredible but immensely likable characters. Carroll was a master of toying with the eccentricities of language. One feels that Carroll is never more at home than when he is playing, punning, or otherwise messing around with the English tongue. Although the book has been interpreted in numerous ways, from an allegory of semiotics theory to a drug-fueled hallucination, perhaps it is this playfulness that has ensured its success over the last century. The book is brilliant for children, but with enough hilarity and joy for life in it to please adults too, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a lovely book with which to take a brief respite from our overly rational and sometimes dreary world.

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7 Lord of the Rings Fan Theories to Rule Them All

As you probably remember, Gollum wasn't always Gollum. For a time he was Smeagol, a Hobbit quickly corrupted by the power of the One Ring. It was his "precious" that afforded him an extraordinarily long life, and warped him into the scrappy half-naked mangoblin that becomes the bane of Frodo and Sam. Though he's been Gollum far longer than he was Smeagol, at times there seems to be a war of identities going on within the sad creature. We assume that the centuries he's spent under the ring's influence has created this rift within the character, but that might not be the case at all. One intriguing fan theory claims that Gollum is actually a personality inside the ring, an entity that can possess anyone. The identity isn't unique to Smeagol, meaning that if someone like Aragorn held it long enough, he'd turn into a pasty diaper-wearing wretch just the same as you would. Think about those we know who have held the ring for an extended period of time. Right off the bat, there's Bilbo Baggins. He seemed relatively chill about the ring and managed to hold onto it for years without going nanners, but we definitely saw some cracks forming in his psyche when Gandalf came to town. Bilbo was less than thrilled about having his "precious" taken away. That, right there -- Bilbo unconsciously "gollum'd." That's the "Gollum personality" breaking through, its infection spreading within Bilbo. The possession gets a bit more overt later on during a conversation with Frodo, at which point Bilbo's face makes a hellish transformation. Looks a lot like Gollum, doesn't it? Bilbo doesn't just call the ring his "precious" just because he heard Gollum say that -- that's actually Gollum talking through Bilbo. For more proof, we have to look no further than Isildur. Remember Isildur is the one who lopped Sauron's fingers off and took the ring? Isildur is also the same shitbrick who, given the chance, didn't toss the ring into the fires of Mount Doom. Instead, he wore it around his neck, which is more or less the Middle-earth equivalent of treating a nuclear warhead like a piece of bling. The corrosive power eventually killed Isildur, but not before he wrote about the ring in a series of creepy journals. Gandalf discovered these writings, and found one particularly disturbing passage. Could it really be a coincidence that a dude who lived thousands of years before Smeagol would used the same word to describe the One Ring? Probably not. It seems a lot more likely that Gollum is a personality inside the ring that infects its host and possesses them to protect the ring and do Sauron's bidding. If Isildur's hubris hadn't ended him, it may well have been his wispy form that Bilbo came across on his initial adventure in The Hobbit. Now, the name "Gollum" is merely the name given to Smeagol after his neighors kept seeing him hacking up a lung every day, so it's probably not the actual title of the deity inside the ring. But the name "Gollum" has significance, in that it's pretty close to "golem," the mythological creature which is made of inanimate materials, but given life from an outside force. It's a compelling theory not because it dramatically changes the story, but because it gives you a new perspective on what the ringbearers must have been going through. That, and it's fun imagining a crazed Viggo Mortensen wearing a diaper.

This is a stupid idea. No one's going to actually come out and say that J.R.R. Tolkien created Albus Dumbledore and the world of Harry Potter. But it's a testament to the strength of fan theories that some beautiful bastard could come up with a convincing explanation that links Hogwarts and Middle-earth. It all relies on the fact that there are five Istari -- better known as "wizards" to people who have seen the sun in the last two weeks -- in the realm of this fiction. You probably already know three of them: Gandalf the Grey, Saruman the White and Radagast "That Forest Hippie Who Refuses to Clean the Birdshit Out of His Beard" the Brown. The missing pieces of this magical grandpa pie are the two "Blue Wizards," which Tolkien glossed over briefly but never really followed up on. Last we heard, they were sent into Mordor to quell the threat of Sauron. They weren't seen again, but there's also no explicit mention of their deaths. The two blue wizards could be anyone, which is why it's entirely possible that they are in fact Albus Dumbledore and his nemesis/boytoy Gellen Grindelwald. All it would take is a temporal or multidimensional mishap, and they'd be in the modern world of muggles. How they got to Earth from Middle-earth isn't as important as the thematical connections. Dumbledore says that "It is important to fight, and fight again, and keep fighting, for only then can evil be kept at bay, though never quite eradicated." Meaning that he wasn't going to give up once Sauron was down for the count. Though Grindelwald fell to the "dark side" like Saruman before him, Dumbledore kept up the fight and was eventually upgraded from "Dumbledore the Blue" to "Dumbledore the White." It fits, especially because in Latin, "Albus" literally translates to "white." It makes sense that Dumbledore took the job at Hogwarts, as that was the place he could best mount his defense of the world. Once there, he builds an army of wizards to do just that. And yet, he still remembers where he came from, which explains why there's a portrait of Gandalf the Grey hanging in Dumbledore's office. Dumbledore had already assembled his wizard defense force, so he passed off into the undying lands in the most fantastical way possible. The entire theory sheds new light on Dumbledore's words: "Ah, music. A magic far beyond all we do here!" As it so happens, the world of Middle-earth was created via song by the Illuvatar. Did J.K. Rowling write Dumbledore with Tolkien's lost wizards in mind? It's not impossible, but it's probably unlikely. It doesn't matter, because veracity isn't the point of this fan theory. The real strength of this tangled yarn is just how creative it is in weaving two disparate but similar fictions together. These two worlds don't exist anyway, so why can't they they exist in the same place?

Though it's not featured in a big way in the films, the books go into a little more detail about the death of Frodo's parents. Drogo and Primula Baggins drowning during a freak boating accident is tragic, but storywise, it gives Frodo less of a reason to be tied down to the Shire. But one fan theory suggests there's a darker undercurrent to this story, that Frodo's parents were in fact murdered. The culprit: Gollum. We all know that creepazoid is capable of murder. It's arguably the first thing Smeagol ever did as Gollum. After the events of the Hobbit, Gollum set about finding the his precious stolen ring. Problem was, Gollum really only had two things to go on when it came to finding the ring: "Baggins" and "Shire." It's not out of the question that he might come across the Brandywine River on his quest, and he would certainly kill any Bagginses he found there. The theory is propped up by the questionable circumstances of the deaths. There seems to be a question among the Hobbits as to just how Frodo's parents passed. Whatever the case, both Drogo and Primula were pretty experienced boaters, so it's more than a little surprising that they would just fall in the water and die. No, it makes more sense that an angry Gollum murdered them straight out, giving up on his mission once he found nothing on their person. The only real damper on this theory is Gandalf, who claims that Gollum never made it to the Brandywine. That would seem to put an end to this theory, but put yourself in Gandalf's old man shoes for a minute. You're talking to Frodo, the guy who is going to lug the world's most dangerous weapon across a continent, and he's pretty fragile as it is. Now imagine if Gandalf decided to tell Frodo that the same guy who guides him through Mordor is the one that deprived him of his parents -- he'd undoubtedly lose himself to rage at some point, and as a result succumb to the power of the ring itself. If Gandalf hadn't pulled off an Obi-Wan-tier lie, our story would be over before it began. To be fair, at least that one ending is preferable to like seventy.

This almost feels like cheating. This "fan theory" is so perfect, fits so well into the mythos of the series that it's basically canon. But that's exactly the reason it can't be ignored. Just after the Fellowship is formed, the angelic Lady Galadriel offers each member of the group a special gift. Legolas got a rad new bow, Pippin and Merry each received sweet daggers, and Boromir was bestowed with a tacky gold belt that did not go with his bracers. The most interesting gift was that given to Gimli, the dwarf. While most others just took what was handed to them, Galadriel actually asked Gimli what he wanted from the elves. After a bit of stammering, Gimli gave in and requested his greatest desire. Others were naturally curious about this mystery gift. Asking for (and actually GETTING) a strand of Galadriel's hair might sound creepy, but it's really a huge deal. To explain why, we have to rewind a few thousand years. Several millennia before the War of the Ring, there was this shitbird named Feanor. Now, Feanor is a grade-A dickweed, but even he can see how lovely Galadriel is. As the legend has it, Feanor too asked for a single strand of Galadriel's hair, but he was denied. Twice more Feanor made the same request, and twice more he was shut down. Dude wasn't worthy of Galadriel's crusty toenail clippings, much less her luscious locks. Flash forward to the Fellowship, and Gimli's wish for a strand of Galadriel's flawless hair is granted threefold. Though Gimli is likely oblivious to the significance of the gesture, Legolas' smile tells us he understands. Up to this point, dwarves and elves had an uneasy relationship, like co-workers that hate each other but stay cool because they have to be in close proximity every day. But Galadriel saw the innate goodness in Gimli, and rewarded him thrice over. You can almost hear Feanor grumbling "It still only counts as one."

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The lord of the rings-review

I say "excellent" but add a caveat. The book is overly long. This edition includes all three "Lord of the Rings" books, and its size indicates what a massive task was undertaken by Tolkien when he sat down to fulfill "the desires of a tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story..." (as he says in a foreword to the second edition, reprinted in this book). It is a massive undertaking not just for the writer but for the reader as well. Despite Tolkien's remark (in the same foreword) that the book is "too short," one is left with just the opposite impression. Curled Up With a Good BookWhen Tolkien said the book is too short, it is easy to assume he was speaking with tongue in cheek; easy, that is, until one reaches the end of the book and sees the various Appendixes. There is enough additional information here about hobbits and the "Second and Third Ages" to make it clear that the author might easily have added another thousand pages to the tale. Perhaps, given Tolkien's prodigious imagination, he truly did feel the book to be too short. The story could have been pared down in places without really losing much. Sometimes it seems to take forever for Frodo (the primary character or "hobbit" in the tale) to simply walk over a hill or go to sleep. That complaint aside, it must be hastily added that this is a truly wonderful sword-and-sorcery tale, otherwise beautifully told. A wonderful book for lovers of fantasy fiction. That's "book" because The Lord of the Rings is not three books, as many assume, but one book in three parts (each part originally published separately). It is in fact the sequel to The Hobbit. In The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins (not Frodo) comes away with a magic ring that, put on the finger, makes one invisible. That was the extent of its power until Tolkien sat down to write "The Lord of the Rings". Now we learn that this particular ring is the ring that binds other magic rings and creates, for the holder of the "One Ring", the ultimate power over all the world. It is, in other words, the ring of rings, and it is now sought by an evil force that has been searching for it since its loss many years prior to Bilbo's finding it. The Lord of the Rings opens with Bilbo celebrating his "eleventy-first" birthday. Bilbo is now well over one hundred years of age. He chooses this birthday to pass on the ring (which he has had in his possession since finding it) to Frodo, his heir. In doing so, it is Frodo that becomes the central character of the novel. The ring Frodo how holds must be destroyed yet it is indestructible, so what is to be done? It can be destroyed, it turns out, only one way: by throwing it into the depths of Mount Doom. The quest is set, Frodo (and others, in particular another good hobbit named Sam) must set off to destroy the ring. Many dark forces will try to stop him and take the ring from him along the way. The true saving graces of this book are the astounding imagination of the author and, by his wonderful writing ability, the realization of that imagination. Despite its great length, the book manages to hold the reader's attention and, in parts, is quite gripping. (Stripping away some excess would have made this a legitimate page-turner.) It is a book replete with dozens of wonderfully imaginative characters and creatures, many of which no doubt helped spawn other tales that carry similarities to this one (such as the Star War series). It's easy to see why it is a fantasy classic, or as some would have it, the fantasy classic. Those readers ready to sit and read the more than one thousand pages will, for the most part, be enthralled except for those rather long-winded parts where you'll say "get on with it". For those others not quite ready to assume the "massive undertaking" of reading the book, you will no doubt enjoy the movie that will do the paring down that the book could have benefited from. The book is, when all is said and done, an amazing achievement.

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The Alchemist review

The Alchemist is written by Paulo Coelho. It’s about a shepherd named Santiago following his dream or personal legend as it is described in the book. The shepherd starts the journey with a dream about finding treasure in the Pyramids of Egypt. He goes to a gypsy woman and an old man claiming to be a mysterious king and they both advise him to pursue it. The quotes that stuck out to me in the first chapters were: “To realize one’s destiny is a person’s only obligation”, and “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” I relate to the story because I feel that currently I am pursuing my own personal legend. Like the shepherd my journey started with an initial vision and my willingness to pursue it. I didn’t have any idea of how I would achieve the goal but I knew that I had to do it. Throughout the shepherd’s journey he learns different lessons. The first lesson he learned was about individuals who don’t pursue their own personal legends. The King told him that everyone, when they are young, knows what their Personal Legend is. He states “At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. But, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their Personal Legend.” One of my favorite passages is: The old man pointed to a baker standing in his shop window at one corner of the plaza. “When he was a child, that man wanted to travel, too. But he decided first to buy his bakery and put some money aside. When he’s an old man, he’s going to spend a month in Africa He never realized that people are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of.” “He should have decided to become a shepherd,” the boy said. “Well, he thought about that,” the old man said. “But bakers are more important people than shepherds. Bakers have homes, while shepherds sleep out in the open. Parents would rather see their children marry bakers than shepherds.” The boy felt a pang in his heart, thinking about the merchant’s daughter. There was surely a baker in her town. The old man continued, “In the long run, what people think about shepherds and bakers becomes more important for them than their own Personal Legends.” That passage speaks directly to me because I see a lot of people settle in life. This relates to everything from where they live, who they are in a relationship with, what job they have, their current goals, and what they want out of life. I have seen firsthand individuals who say that they will work until they get old and then retire off social security. I watched my grandmother retire and get too sick to travel and enjoy life at that age. I am of the mindset that an individual can do anything that they put their mind to. Like Will Smith said, “greatness is not this wonderful esoteric thing that only a few of us have access to, it actually exists in everyone.” I really believe that statement. The ones who achieve greatness are just the ones who are willing to go through the shit and smile while doing so. They are willing to do the things that others won’t. Most individuals don’t want to pursue a business of their own because you are vulnerable. Your income depends on how good your business does. You will have months, sometimes years to where you can’t afford to pay yourself. You must get comfortable being uncomfortable. Most individuals think about pursuing their dream but then they think about giving up their comfortable and routine life. You can choose to pursue your legend like Santiago and go through a lot of shit to get there or you can choose to be the baker. You can decide that pursuing your dream is too risky, and any other ideas that you use to rationalize not going after your dream. But, like the book states, once you don’t listen to your heart and soul telling you to go after your dream, that feeling will reappear randomly over the course of the next year or two. If the individual doesn’t act after those 2 years the heart will just stop talking to the individual and he will cease to have the dream. The dream will disappear totally. The book is a must read for any individual who is currently trying to figure out what they want to do in their life. The book will resonate more with individuals who are currently pursuing their dream. Any of those individuals will relate directly to Santiago. I encourage any individual who is currently on a mission trying to make something happen to read this book. Whether you are discouraged or have high optimism, there will be a time when you are discouraged and you will immediately think back to this book and the shepherd Santiago and you will smile knowing that you will go through shit but “the universe conspires to help any individual trying to achieve their personal legend.”

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One Hundred Years of Solitude-Reviews

When I first read Gabriel García Márquez's 1967 novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, finishing it at 4:00 in the morning, aged twenty, I lay the book on my chest and said aloud to myself, "That was the best book I've ever read."

Since then there have been other favorites, but the impact of that overwhelming introduction to García Márquez's world has remained one of the most formative reading experiences of my life. Looking back, it seems to have prepared me for many things that were to come, but at the time it felt like a totality, a final culmination of everything that a book could ever do or contain.

As with any other truly great experience, One Hundred Years of Solitude evolves and grows with you, encompassing more and more of what the universe has to show and teach you over the years. The novel chronicles several generations of the Buendía family through the evolutions and revolutions and metamorphoses of the fictional/mythical town Macondo, One Hundred Years of Solitude sets up its own internal rules, following truths and logics exclusive to itself as its Genesis-like overture creates the book's world and then carries the reader through its Bible-like begats that follow in dizzying succession and repetition. The universe of Macondo is peopled by patriarchs and matriarchs and prophets and magicians who seem to circle through a fluid time and morph into each other, some characters even living to an age much longer than the novel's ostensible one hundred years.

Required Reading

When the book was translated into English in 1970, the great writer and critic William Kennedy wrote that it was “the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race.” Many years later (the novel’s opening words are “Many years later”), after I’d graduated with a minor in Religious Studies and was doing a systematic study of the Bible on a long trip across Europe, I began to see more than just Genesis in García Márquez’s vast novel-scheme.

The rise and descent of the Buendía family, with all of its endlessly repeating name-variants of the family’s first-generation patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, mirrors the Bibles’ arc from the Book of Joshua to the Book of Judges to the Second Book of Kings. Coming after the Torah (Genesis through Deuteronomy), this second major section of the Bible (called the “Deuteronomical History”) leads toward the establishment of the House of David over the land of Israel and then follows toward the nation’s inevitable disintegration.

When Israel can’t hold any longer and breaks into two parts (the northern Israel, which God dislikes, and the southern Judah, which God favors because it’s still ruled by David’s ancestors, whose supporters were the people who compiled and redacted the Bible), the names and trajectories of the parallel kings mirror each other (e.g. Jereboam/Reheboam) and sometimes even have the same name (and diminutive nickname).

Eventually God “allows” the northern nation to fall to the Assyrians, but Judah endures long enough to have a kind of renaissance, when king Josiah has the high priest clean out the temple treasury so they can repair the temple and the priest discovers “the book of the law” (presumably an early version of Deuteronomy, which contains all the rules that the Israelites have supposedly forgotten).

But then after another brief golden age, Judah eventually goes the way of all flesh too and is conquered by the Babylonians as God decides that the nation has been sinning for way too long and that it’s too late to make up for it now. But the thread of Israel’s Davidic lineage continues in the Babylonian exile, because God has promised to let David’s descendants rule forever.

García Márquez mimics many of these biblical complexities and absurdities as Macondo rushes toward disintegration, and he has a mysterious Gypsy named Melquíades write it all down in a book of parchments—a book the memory of which is taken into exile by a minor character named Gabriel García Márquez, who had been friends with the last of the Buendías: Aureliano Babilonia Buendía (note his middle name), who translated Melquíades’ book.

Near the end of the real Gabriel García Márquez’s book, which is the one we read and whose fictional original is Melquíades’ book, nobody but Aureliano Babilonia Buendía and Gabriel García Márquez even believe in the existence of the forgotten town anymore. Thus the character Gabriel García Márquez goes into a kind of “Babylonian” exile, and his real-life counterpart, the author Gabriel García Márquez, is the only one left to tell the tale when it’s all over.

As in the Bible, we read in One Hundred Years of Solitude of an endlessly overlapping and circling mythical history, and of that history’s translation into an ur-chronicle, which is then redacted by a human author to become the book that we get to hold in our hands and read. At twenty, with my hands empty and the finished novel on my chest, I only understood some of these vast resonances.

But the book utterly changed me and sent me on journeys that I couldn’t have imagined at the time, making One Hundred Years of Solitude both a starting-place and a constant point of return, an Alpha and Omega that can be wholly loved and appreciated by the unschooled twenty year old and the educated writer/critic alike—and in my case, connecting and uniting them into one constantly evolving person.

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The Great Gatsby-F. Scott Fitzgerald - Qutes

First published in 1925, The Great Gatsby is a novel by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. It is widely considered as one of the greatest works in English literature and along with Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, it is the foremost contender for the title of the “Great American Novel”. Many lines from the book are still analyzed by enthusiasts and several have become legendary. Here are the 10 most famous quotations from The Great Gatsby with their explanation.

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- Review " Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows " - (J.K Rowlling)

Seventeen years ago, in Godric Valley, Voldemort believed in a prophecy that the Harry Potter child would be able to defeat him. Voldemort had murdered the Potter family, except for Harry. Seventeen years later, the battle once again broke out, Voldemort reborn and seized the ultimate evil powers in his hand. He waved a cold rice wand, killing a lot of beings. The dark side headed for Hogwarts, breaking the guard's line of defense. Hogwarts fell, countless resilient sorcerers against the dark forces were gone. I cried, before the death of Dobby, a elf who aspired to be free and brave, loyal, loving Harry Potter. Unexpectedly, the death of a small creature made the reader suffer like that. Miss Rowling was really talented when she created Dobby, and gave him a contentment "when you're with Harry Potter's friends" - a heroic death. Followed by Mr. Lupine and Tonks, when they left, they still lay side by side, holding hands together peacefully. Lupine then said that his son would be proud to know what his parents had done, like Harry was extremely proud to have parents as James and Lily. They went to bring their love to heaven and contributed greatly to the fight against darkness. Finally, Fred Weasley, the guy who brought a laugh through the seven volumes, when he left was when the laughter ended, leaving a painful feeling for Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and the reader. There will be no frowning smile of Fred, or he will receive the victory with twin brother George Weasley. Besides, we cannot help mentioning Severus Snape, a double-agent, having a great, silent and great love for Lily. Snape's death is a noble, brave sacrifice. Mr. Snape dared to risk his life to save Harry Potter and his friends, even though he believed he was a bad person, he didn't care. In fact, it all came from love for Lily, the emotion that covered the work silently, quietly. "Harry Potter And Bao Boi Death" closed, also when Harry Potter ended. Until the final battle, destroying the final Horcrux, everyone is tired. At that time, they united and trusted each other to overcome difficulties. And to get the final victory, they exchanged many lives. For me, that is not a happy ending. The prospect of nineteen years later was drawn, still nine-thirds of the station, still the Hogwarts express train but now Harry Potter has grown into a bright god, with Ginny bringing their second son to Hogwarts. . Here, Harry nodded to the archenemy - Draco Malfoy, and strode to Ron and Hermione, the three looking at the departure of the Hogwarts train carrying their dreams and plan, returning to their first place. Meet each other, a new beginning is started!

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- Review " Harry Potter and the Blood Prince " - (J.K Rowlling)

The truth about the priceless life and the greatest person is gone, more and more people are leaving. The battle between Harry and Voldemort became increasingly tense and fierce. Harry now went to find the Dark Lord's past to find the clues to the priceless students he hid. In contrast to the gloomy sixth year, we can see that the feelings of the characters are increasingly evident, especially in Hermione and Ron. Many people still believe that Hermione and Harry are a couple, but for Hermione to be like Harry's mother, understanding and advising him, always by his side and knowing he likes Cho Chang to Ginny. This summer is the first time Dumbledore faces directly with Dursley's aunt's family. And the teacher gave Harry a new trip. When returning to school Harry Potter found a book about poison written by the Half-Blood Prince. Although he did not know who this person was, but surely one thing, this must be a genius of poison, because the recipes in his handbook are extremely ingenious and accurate. Harry's new talent attracted the attention of the second-in-charge professor Horace Slughorn, who was invited by the principal Albus Dumbledore to teach at the school. Thanks to Mr. Horace Slughorn, Harry has found clues about Vodemort's priceless longevity. This sixth year, Dumbledore and Harry had private lessons. That night, Dumbledore and Harry begin an adventure to the cave in the forest that Voldemort came to his childhood to take the capable Horcrux there. However, when both returned, they were ambushed by death, which was Draco Malfoy's plan. Both fell, while Draco did not dare to kill Dumbledore, Professor Snape and release the curse Avada Kedrava descended on the principal. "Harry Potter and the Prince of the Future" gradually closed with a sad ending when Dumbledore left. So from now on we will no longer be able to see the great principal of Hogwarts, the whole school is covered in sadness and sadness, the portrait of Dumbledore is hung up with his predecessor. Harry Potter's journey will become more and more difficult without Dumbledore, protecting and advising wise advice. but it was only later that I realized what it meant for Miss Rowling to let Dumbledore go, because if she remained, it would no longer be the survival battle of the surviving Harry Potter and the Dark Lord Voldemort. It's like Dumbledore is the only one who directs Harry, but can't protect him forever. however, this departure is still a great loss in Potterhead's hearts.

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- Review " Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix " - (J.K Rowlling)

This is the most gloomy story in 7 series. The beginning is Harry's obsession with Cedric's death. And the night was not good during the summer vacation, the two guards suddenly appeared to attack Harry and Dudley. Harry uses the amulet spell but is violating the law for minors, is outlawed and almost expelled from the incident. And now, Harry knows the existence of the "Phoenix Society" headed by Dumbledore. However, his troublesome life seemed to stall when "Whoever knows who" The Dark Lord - Voldemort is back. The press and the Ministry of Magic did not believe Harry, they turned their backs on him and smeared Harry as a fabricator. Bored, even following Harry's footsteps to Hogwarts, dozens of things happened with the new principal, Dolores Umbridge, going everywhere to scare students with teachers, making things even more messy. Dolores makes every effort to destroy the bustling and fun atmosphere at Hogwarts. The result Harry always appeared with a helpless face without escape. He and two close friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger formed a society called "Dumbledore Corps" to teach witches to use magic and learn new spells. In the fifth year at Hogwarts, Harry began to realize that he and Voldemort had links. He saw the Dark Lord torturing Mr. Weasly, about something he was looking for, and then fell into a dangerous trap when Harry saw Sirius caught by Voldemort at the Ministry. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville and Luna immediately went to the Ministry of Magic in London. Here, the battle between Harry's group and the Death Eaters breaks out, in order to win the prophetic sphere, where there is an answer to Voldemort's way of defeating Harry. The battle was fierce until the Phoenix Association arrived. While fighting duel with Lucius Malfoy, Sirius was unexpectedly smuggled by his cousin, Bellatrix, to curse the Avada Kedrava curse. No matter how winning or losing, I feel that the outcome is too tragic. Harry lost another father, a father who understood and loved Harry. Sirius can defy everything to see Harry, if only he wants to. But now no more, Sirius cannot return forever. The fifth episode ends. Dumbledore and Harry's final battle with Voldemort was formally dueling, and right in front of the Ministry of Magic. The ministry and all the people in witchcraft believed: The Dark Lord truly rose. But in order to have that, a hero and a great man permanently leaves, carrying an unsolvable unjust, Sirius Black

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- Review " Harry Potter and fire goblet " - (J.K Rowlling)

In the first three episodes, the reader simply thinks that the witch world only has Hogwart but in this fourth episode, it is more open in the wizarding world that JK Rowling wants everyone to see, not only Hogwart but there are also many witch training schools all over the country. In this episode, the author's creative imagination is indeed increasingly appreciated, all the details in this book 4 compel the reader to imagine every detail, the Three Dharma Competition. , the dangerous dragons, the fishmen, ... In this episode, there is a dissonance between Harry and Ron, at this point I deeply agree with the JK because the friendship cannot be all pink, especially There will be arguments and jealousy between the friends, and at the same time, the appearance of affection between characters, especially the Harry Potter protagonist, is also the episodes of returning. completely of Voldemort, not as predictable as the previous episodes. The thrilling book from the world Quitditch competition to the end of the story at the magic exam ended with Cedric diggory's death as a talented male student of Warmpuff. Episode 4 begins with joy, suspicion of suspicion, excitement, suspense and finally a feeling of frustration and pain. "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" or because he was nervous and moved. Cedric's death was also the opening death for Harry Potter's next series of gloomy days. Readers are both satisfied and regretful!