Two Books

Well, since my search for an apartment (unfruitfully) continues, and I haven't been able to go to the movies lately, I'll take a few moments to write a little about a couple of books I read recently... The first one is The Act You've Known for All These Years: A Year in the Life of Sgt. Pepper and Friends, (em português) whose title is pretty self-explanatory... it's a great book about one of the most creative and weird periods of pop music. Beatles, Bob Dylan, (Syd Barrett's) Pink Floyd, Beach Boys (well, Brian Wilson really), Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young... those were amazing times... basically Clinton Heylin writes about that year when the world's greatest bands were fighting to see who would come up with the next big breakthrough (you know, after Rubber Soul, Revolver, Blonde on Blonde, Pet Sounds...) in pop music, and would set the pace for everything that was to come. Acid is, alongside the aforementioned artists, the main character of the story of the rise (and fall, sort of) of psychodelia. For me it was really cool to get to know much more about one of my favorite musical periods ever. One of the best parts of the book is that, even though Heylin pays the deserved respect to everybody involved he does look at everything with a critical eye... this is no ode to Sgt. Pepper's... it is a serious, fairly unbiased analysis of the environment in which it came to be... oh, and he suggests soundtracks for each chapter, which is pretty cool too!!! :-)

When I came to Belo Horizonte, one of the first places I went to was (of course) the nearby mall. There I went into a bookstore and two books caught my eyes: a fairly short book by José Saramago that I'd never seen before, 1993, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (em potuguês)... I don't really know why I got interested in the latter... I didn't know the author, had never heard about the book, and didn't contain any clues as to what the hell it was about. But it wasn't an expensive book, so I trusted my guts and bought it anyways (I bought 1993 too). I actually do that quite often and I usually end up enjoying the book. This was no exception. It's not an amazing book, that's true. But it's pretty enjoyable. The fact that it's from the perspective of a 9-year-old, and the lengths the author goes to to make sure you don't forget that, is sometimes annoying: like "mispronunciation" of some words, repetition of certain sentences, stuff like that. It's not meant for children, though, no way! There's not much I could write about the story that wouldn't ruin it for you because if you don't have at least a little suspense in the beginning it will be hard to read it all... but if you like little fables that try and tell really heavy stories with a light mood you'll definitely enjoy this... I guess that was the whole point, because the theme in itself has been touched on by so many people before (and yes, with so much more talented) that were it not for the whole fable thing, it would be hard to justify why the hell do we need another little sad story on the matter...

What I Read in Oz

Tou de volta em casa, então vou voltar a postar em inglês...

I'm back home! After a wonderful month in Australia (hopefully you've seen the photos), I'm back in Campinas and eager to post about the books I read while I was there. Well, I don't know about you guys but I need a book when I'm traveling: there's just so many different situations when you feel like reading something good that I'm sure I'll be constantly regretting it if I don't bring any good book with me. With that in mind, I bought a book before leaving Brasil: Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce. I'd tried Joyce before (Finnegan's Wake, if you are curious), with very little success. But, I don't know why, I thought this would be easier. Well, it sure is easier, but not quite easy enough. The thing is, a good travel-book has to be "easy-reading" too, in the sense that it shouldn't require too much concentration to get through: definitely I'd made a bad choice this time. Consequently, my first couple of weeks in Australia were pretty much bookless. When I got to Adelaide though, I got a pretty cool gift from my dear hostess, a book called Down Under, by Bill Bryson. Bryson has one of the best jobs ever: he basically goes on a trip and then writes a book about it. And he is a pretty good writer too, very funny, very enticing. He also does his homework pretty well, talking a lot about Australia's history, fairly superficial but interesting opinions/analysis of its current situation, some unusual (but really interesting) destinations. It's the perfect companion for a guy who is backpacking through Australia and I wished I'd bought it before I went; I might've changed some of my plans based on his experiences: I think I'd probably put visiting the Outback higher up on my priority list. I quite enjoyed the book, and may even buy some of his other books, just gotta figure out what's my next destination.... :-)
By the time I was flying back here, I'd almost finished the book so I knew that I'd need something to get me through the endless flight back home. So, everything kinda fell into place when I was walking around Sydney, the day before my flight, and I wandered into this cheap bookstore after seeing Slam, the new book by Nick Hornby on the window. Nick Hornby, for those that don't know it yet, is one of my favorite author's, having written such gems as High Fidelity, About a Boy, Fever Pitch and A Long Way Down. I just had to buy it.
First of all, a word of warning is in place: this is a book about a teenager written for teenagers. Even though its topic is pretty serious (teenage pregnancy), I am, by no means, its target audience. Having said that, I found it a pretty enjoyable harmless reading; it's not brilliant and it's not up to the standard of his previous books (always keeping in mind, I'm not the intended audience here). I don't know if it's already been too long since I was a teenager, but Sam is a really annoyingly silly, Tony Hawk-crazed, very "teenagy" guy, whereas Alicia is this centered, well-balanced, unbelievably pretty girl. He is in fact so childish that you just get pissed off most of the time reading the book (since its told from his perspective, knowing what he thinks sometimes is just irritating). But it is a pretty interesting book about a pretty rough subject, with intricate , well-developed characters (Sam and Alicia, for example, change quite a lot throughout the book). And it feels quite realistic too. It was an enjoyable book overall, just below his previous work because of the whole "teenage-book" thing.

Written to the sound of A.C. Newman, Badly Drawn Boy, Elliot Smith and Jeff Buckley...

When Nietzsche Wept [Book]

OK, this long overdue post on Nietzsche is gonna start with a confession of sorts: I admit I was really prejudiced against this book. I don't really know why, probably the title and the whole thing just seemed a little bit corny... I thought it was just some cheap way of capitalizing on Nietzsche's name. I certainly wouldn't have bought it. But my mom gave it to me, so I thought "hey, what the hell, I'll give it a try!". And a try I gave. Only after having already loved it did I find out it's written by a professor from Standford who certainly knows what he's talking about. And since I've always really enjoyed reading Nietzsche, but hadn't done so in a while, it was really good to shake the dust off of a few of his books.

First off, a piece of advice. If you can get your hands on Nietzsche's autobiography (of sorts), called Ecce Homo, I really think you should read the first couple of chapters beforehand. They are called:

1. Why am I so wise
2. Why am I so intelligent
3. Why do I write such good books

(Well, that's a free translation, I don't know how the actual English version goes.)
I guess from that you can take a little perspective on who Nietzsche was and what he thought of himself (certainly no self-esteem problems there). After that, it's gonna be a little easier to appreciate and understand Irvin D. Yalom's portrayal of Nietzsche in his book. It's really something amazing. After a slightly rocky start, while the whole plot is being set up, the last two thirds or so of the book are just inspired. It's all about the dialogs, and Mr. Yalom is certainly very good at that. And, as long as I could tell being no expert, it's really accurate regarding Nietzsche's general philosophy. It's probably the best and easiest way to be introduced to it.

Nietzsche, in my opinion, is someone to be admired. Not necessarily believed in, or followed: but most certainly admired. His relentless search for "truth", each one's truth that is, is nothing less of inspiring. And he wrote powerful words. I couldn't help but get a weird feeling of getting analyzed along with Nietzsche and Dr. Breuer (the two main characters in the book). And couldn't help but feeling many questions answered and many thoughts challenged or confirmed in a brilliant way. I can't think of anything better to be read, absorbed, reread, and then discussed over a few beers with great friends.

Why do I hate (auto)biographies? And the one I didn't hate...

OK, so I've tried reading biographies: actually, the whole concept of a biography seems appealing, you admire someone and want to read about their life, how they got to be who they are. But, for some reason, I really don't like reading biographies. I've tried (auto)biographies of great people that I admire, Gandhi, Che Guevara... of important, relevant people such as Winston Churchill, or just of great writers such as José Saramago and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I haven't actually got to finish any of those: and I don't usually start a book and leave it before finishing... so, why don't I like them?? And why do I love this one in particular: Ecce Homo, by Nietzche.

I guess I don't like biographies because they usually go into so much detail about the dullest things... what do I care if Che Guevara had a flu when he was 11? I guess it's really hard for the writers to really set apart what's interesting to a ley person from what's only relevant to scholars and such... or maybe I just haven't found anyone famous that I was that much interested about... so I probably hate biographies because I can't get past the first few chapters of any of them... it's so damn dull!!! Where they were born, their uninteresting family problems, schools, bla, bla, bla... One of these days I'll just try starting from chapter 8 or something and see where it goes from there...


OK, the post is too long already, guess I'll talk about Nietzsche some other time...

On the coming of death

It's funny how many books used to be written simply about some fact, feeling or concept, and how it would affect someone, or people in general. Nobody does that anymore, I guess because all the great topics have already been taken, and quite wonderfully written about. I'm writing all this to talk about two books I just finished reading: The Death of Ivan Ilitch (Tolstoi) and The Last Day of a Man Condemned to Death (Victor Hugo). They both deal with the approach of unavoidable, inexorable death: in the former caused by a mysterious ailment, in the latter by human stupidity, arrogance and intolerance (well, more objectively by the death penalty). They are both wonderful novels written by two genius, arguably the best their respective countries ever had to offer. Both near contemporary, well at least they shared a century. Both are opinion-makers, they don't write merely for the beauty of writing: they want to pass along their ideas. But each pushed by very different reasons.
Tolstoi puts his own ghosts in his writing, by facing the fear of death and, worse yet, of life wasted. He harshly criticizes what was believed to be a "good" life by his fellow russians, a decent life indeed. The slow decay of respectable judge Ivan Ilitch into despair and almost-inhumanity caused by the certainty of death-to-come is a horrible and disturbing thing to read about. But most disturbing is his ultimate realization and evaluation of how he lived his life.
Victor Hugo is also harsh in his attack on death penalty. He describes the last days of a dead-man, for after the sentenced is pronounced he is indeed dead. He is a nameless convict. Hugo doesn't go for the easy solution of creating some sort of bond between the reader and the convict by describing him as particularly nice, or wrongly accused. No, he is guilty. Of what, we don't know, but certainly of something awful. The only shred of humanity in him is his daughter, the 3-year-old girl orphaned by each and every french person that allows such cruelty to go on. I don't remember seeing such a well-crafted, beautiful defence of something that ultimately shouldn't need defending, as this novel, together with the impressive 1832 preface (that, luckily enough, was reproduced in my edition of the book) Hugo wrote. And I recommend that everyone that ever stopped to think about the fairness and morality of the death penalty read it.

For free, at the Project Gutenberg (well, in the original french)
The edition I read, in portuguese: (Livraria Cultura).