Boring Nerdy Post

ok this one is for my parents to reassure them that I am not rotting my brain with Tanduay, reggae music, etc...

The Red and The Black - Stendhal

LOVED this book. Recommended by dad, so good job. One of the early french psychological writers. About an ambitions young man making his fortune in some reprehensible but perfectly socially permitting ways for the time. Twisted plot where no one is happy... awesomeness.

Faust - Goethe
Yeah, I read about three chapters and just didn't care. I really am not much of a fan of novels in verse, Eugene Onegin and the Oddessy were the only ones I could deal with. And I didn't really feel any sort of sympathy with the characters who all seemed too crazy and convoluted and had no bearing on my life.

Love - Stendhal
Tried to read this as well since I liked The Red and The Black, but this is not really a novel, but just Stendhal rambling about love for 300 pages. I do not recommend unless you are a huge sap and want to read about love for that long- It bored me to death after 10 pages.

Les Miserables - Hugo

I loved the Hunchback so I decided to read this monolith of a novel. Very good, with Hugo's style, but there were a bit too many digressions for my taste, many of which it seemed irrelevant for the text development in any way. As I already knew the story the impact of the novel was also lessened for me, but it still was an epic book.

My complaint was that all of the characters seemed to be archetypes - Cosette was perfectly pure, Jean val Jean was always good, etc. No one deviated at all from their character as real humans do. That is why I love War and Peace so much, all of the characters are anti-heroes, but because of that you can relate with them much more personally because they have the foibles that ordinary people have. I liked Les Mis, but enjoyed The Hunchback of Notre Dame much better, mainly because of the characters and the writing.

"They made the problem of calling the Bourgeoisie a class, they are not a class simply the satisfied segment of the population"

"She loved him the most because she saw him the least, it is very easy to bestow perfection upon those you rarely see"

The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Kundera

Also loved this book, Perriface put me up to reading it so thank you. The story is told from the perspective of each of the characters in turn, and is powerful because many of the traits of the characters you see as shocking or socially wrong, but it is also very easy to find traces of those same things inside of yourself they are just much less embraced and open. So which is better to come out and declare to people that you are shocking and openly womanize in front of your wife as Thomas does, or do it behind society? Great book.

Oliver Twist - Dickens

Well, I have mixed feelings. I have never been a huge dickens fan since I find his writing and characters a bit laborious to read. I picked this up and immediately in the intro it says that it is an early and therefore not very developed work, so I cant judge it too hard. I do love Dickens' sarcasm though, most of the text is dripping with it as long as you read closely enough. My problem with the book was that Oliver annoyed me. He seemed so weak throughout the novel, although I guess he was only 8 or 9 so I should forgive him. Everything also worked out way too well in the end. I liked the characters of Nancy and Sikes, and the Artful Doger, but thought that Oliver was a weak main character which I am sure was not what Dickens was trying to represent as Oliver is supposed to embodied the force of goodness, and that would mean that goodness is weak and sniveling against evil, only really winning out by accident.