The sixth book in the Geralt saga (or fourth, if you count only the novels), this book continues where "Baptism of Fire" left. Some English editions have the plural "Swallows" in the title, but that's wrong, as the original Polish title is to be translated in singular in English.
Ciri is found by the hermit/professor/exile/philosopher Visygota and nursed back to health while she tells him her story of her band, the Rats, frolicking around doing banditry stuff, until getting murdered by the bounty hunter Leo Bonhart who was introduced by the end of the previous volume. He is so meticulous that he saws off the heads of all the Rats after murdering them, slowly and neatly. He captures Ciri and beats her viciously, leading her around on a rope around her neck and eventually forcing her to fight in an arena in Claremont for his and others amusement.
Geralt and his gang continues to search for Ciri. They find Ciri's double Angulleme, who also joins them, and have a skirmish at some mines, where they barely escape with their lives, but continue to look for the Druids. Geralt becomes much nicer to Cahir, who is scheduled to die in the next (last) book, together with most others, anyway.
Eventually they find the druids, but all is not peaches, as the druid(esse)s control walking, semi-sentient trees (Ents???) who capture all kinds of brigands but also Geralt and his gang, to be burned alive in a Wicker Man, a respected, age-old Druid tradition. Luckily Regis has some pull with the druidesses and persuades them to free their friends. The gang then continues to Touissant, where the next book will take place. Mostly. If you don't count a parallel universe where Elves exterminated humans.
Ciri gets better with Visygota's care and sets of on a quest to revenge herself and her friends, despite Visygota's strong protests. Eventually she finds Leo Bonehead, Stefan Skellen, Rience and the rest of the merry company who enjoy torturing people with white-hot iron and dismembering them while still alive. Ciri leads the hunting posse on a chase towards a frozen lake, beyond which the Tower of the Swallow lies with its thousand portals to time and space inside. On the lake Ciri kills much of the group, minus Bonhart and Skellen, including cutting off the fingers of Rience while he clings to the edge of the ice with her ice skates. Then she disappears in the Tower and teleports to the world of Elves (not intentionally).
Friday, October 26, 2018
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
"The Monkey's Paw" by William Wymark Jacobs
Jacobs died in 1943, just as his most famous story was included in yet another anthology which he didn't live to see published. It is a bit ironic that in the eight decades of his life, Jacobs produced many novels and short story collections, but only one story, from a relatively early collection (just about when he was getting married), outlived all his other works and became the token for his creative output and his life of creative endeavors.
Jacobs mostly wrote lighthearted prose about the Sea and Seamen, and the supernatural stories he wrote were never his priority or preoccupation. And yet "The Monkey's Paw" has come out to be one of the most imitated, replicated, anthologized, remade in various media and resurrected over and over work in literature in general. Even well into the 21st century the story is still being remade in film, video and online media.
It is a short story, but impactful. Future versions and remakes have added that the mummified monkey's paw would contract one finger each time a wish is made, and at the count of three wishes, it would extend all fingers again, ready for the next unfortunate person to be punished for wanting to change destiny in such a trivial way. In the original story the paw merely moves and vibrates each time a wish is granted.
And who can forget the terror of the last page when the knocking on the door becomes louder, while the tearful mother is fumbling with the lock, the father exasperatedly pronouncing the last wish for the "thing" outside to be no more. And only the night and the wind await the mother when she finally manages to unlock the door. For the best.
Jacobs mostly wrote lighthearted prose about the Sea and Seamen, and the supernatural stories he wrote were never his priority or preoccupation. And yet "The Monkey's Paw" has come out to be one of the most imitated, replicated, anthologized, remade in various media and resurrected over and over work in literature in general. Even well into the 21st century the story is still being remade in film, video and online media.
It is a short story, but impactful. Future versions and remakes have added that the mummified monkey's paw would contract one finger each time a wish is made, and at the count of three wishes, it would extend all fingers again, ready for the next unfortunate person to be punished for wanting to change destiny in such a trivial way. In the original story the paw merely moves and vibrates each time a wish is granted.
And who can forget the terror of the last page when the knocking on the door becomes louder, while the tearful mother is fumbling with the lock, the father exasperatedly pronouncing the last wish for the "thing" outside to be no more. And only the night and the wind await the mother when she finally manages to unlock the door. For the best.
Thursday, October 11, 2018
"The Screaming Skull" by Francis Marion Crawford
This story is intriguing because it is written as a monologue in a play, both the past-narrative part, and the happening-right-now part. It ends with a purported clip from a newspaper about the death of the Captain from human-teeth biting wounds on his neck. The style and voice of the story separate it from the ocean of mediocre ghost stories from the Victorian period, which all seem to follow the same pattern and style.
The old English legend of a Screaming Scull is the topic of the story, and there's a footnote at the end that it is based on real events. How real, we can only imagine, in that age of superstition and primitive beliefs, although less than century-and-a-half distant from present time. Pretty much even the most refined Victorian gentleman would be considered superstition-obsessed, women-oppressing, racist, chauvinist, patriarchal bigot by today's standards.
The story also uses as a literary device killing people by pouring molten led in their ears. This was a common torture used by states and churches around Europe, and even native american Indians, up to the end of the 1890s. The Captain tells a story of a woman who killed three husbands by pouring just a drop of lead in their ears while drugged and sleeping in a stupor. The led could not be traced as a murder weapon because of the small amount, but the bead would travel to the brain and kill the person instantaneously. The only way the woman was caught was by exhuming the bodies of her three late husbands and finding a bead of led rattling in each skull.
When the Doctor hears the Captain's story, his hated wife mysteriously dies a short while after. The Doctor however acquires a strange, polished white skull at the same time, which drives all the servants out of the house with it's incessant shrieking at night. The Doctor dies in the same way as the Captain, and the story hints throughout that the Captain might not have been just an innocent observer in the whole matter.
A great example of a somewhat-different Victorian Ghost Story. Francis Marion Crawford was an interesting person himself. American by citizenship, but born in Italy and spent most of his life outside the US. Initially he was going to be an opera singer, but the Boston Opera principal told him he will never be able to follow a tune. Since his father was a sculptor and his aunt a well-known poet, he made contacts with publishers in New York who were more than glad to publish his novels set in India and Italy, which were considered exotic locales at the time. A self-called Romantic-Realist, Crawford rejected all suggestions that novels, and fiction in general, should teach something and be didactic, but saw them mostly as amusement, but intellectual and elevated amusement.
The old English legend of a Screaming Scull is the topic of the story, and there's a footnote at the end that it is based on real events. How real, we can only imagine, in that age of superstition and primitive beliefs, although less than century-and-a-half distant from present time. Pretty much even the most refined Victorian gentleman would be considered superstition-obsessed, women-oppressing, racist, chauvinist, patriarchal bigot by today's standards.
The story also uses as a literary device killing people by pouring molten led in their ears. This was a common torture used by states and churches around Europe, and even native american Indians, up to the end of the 1890s. The Captain tells a story of a woman who killed three husbands by pouring just a drop of lead in their ears while drugged and sleeping in a stupor. The led could not be traced as a murder weapon because of the small amount, but the bead would travel to the brain and kill the person instantaneously. The only way the woman was caught was by exhuming the bodies of her three late husbands and finding a bead of led rattling in each skull.
When the Doctor hears the Captain's story, his hated wife mysteriously dies a short while after. The Doctor however acquires a strange, polished white skull at the same time, which drives all the servants out of the house with it's incessant shrieking at night. The Doctor dies in the same way as the Captain, and the story hints throughout that the Captain might not have been just an innocent observer in the whole matter.
A great example of a somewhat-different Victorian Ghost Story. Francis Marion Crawford was an interesting person himself. American by citizenship, but born in Italy and spent most of his life outside the US. Initially he was going to be an opera singer, but the Boston Opera principal told him he will never be able to follow a tune. Since his father was a sculptor and his aunt a well-known poet, he made contacts with publishers in New York who were more than glad to publish his novels set in India and Italy, which were considered exotic locales at the time. A self-called Romantic-Realist, Crawford rejected all suggestions that novels, and fiction in general, should teach something and be didactic, but saw them mostly as amusement, but intellectual and elevated amusement.
Wednesday, October 3, 2018
"Green Tea" by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
This is a well known story by a well known Irish writer. Or he was well known until a few decades ago. You've probably heard of Sheridan Le Fanu if you're over 40. Probably not, if you're a millennial.
Neveryoumind, Le Fanu was an Irish writer in the mid-1800s and his specialty was ghost stories. Not anything like the deeply disturbing, mind-shriveling, insomnia-inducing, psychological assassination material that nowadays passes for horror, but good, old, cozy ghost stories intertwined with 19th century metaphysics (which was still a science then), some theosophy, mesmerism and misunderstood Hinduism thrown in.
Le Fanu created a hero, the German doctor Martin Hesselius, who is more into metaphysics and the bad theories of Paracelzus (the good one are actually valid until today, like vaccination) and cures people with cooled cologne and positive affirmations. One of his theories is that drinking large quantities of Green Tea creates neural fluids that allow the drinker to see the spiritual world around us, that is usually invisible (and inaudible). The catch is that this invisible world is inherently malicious and evil and tries hard to drive every person who can perceive it into a gruesome suicide.
In this case the possessed is Reverend Jennings - priest who owns surprisingly large amounts of real estate in and around London, and the demon is a a pitch-black spectral monkey with glowing red eyes and a diabolical grin. Even though Hesselius claims to have cured 57 (exactly) other people with a similar affliction, Jennings, after long suffering, cuts his own throat with an old fashioned straight razor. This kind of result is why Gillette made a fortune when inventing the safety razor. You definitely can't cut your throat from side to side with that one.
Hesselius chugs his failure to cure Jennings to his hereditary suicidal mania, since such theories were still a thing in the 1850s. And recommends against drinking green tea. (But the antioxidants!!)
Neveryoumind, Le Fanu was an Irish writer in the mid-1800s and his specialty was ghost stories. Not anything like the deeply disturbing, mind-shriveling, insomnia-inducing, psychological assassination material that nowadays passes for horror, but good, old, cozy ghost stories intertwined with 19th century metaphysics (which was still a science then), some theosophy, mesmerism and misunderstood Hinduism thrown in.
Le Fanu created a hero, the German doctor Martin Hesselius, who is more into metaphysics and the bad theories of Paracelzus (the good one are actually valid until today, like vaccination) and cures people with cooled cologne and positive affirmations. One of his theories is that drinking large quantities of Green Tea creates neural fluids that allow the drinker to see the spiritual world around us, that is usually invisible (and inaudible). The catch is that this invisible world is inherently malicious and evil and tries hard to drive every person who can perceive it into a gruesome suicide.
In this case the possessed is Reverend Jennings - priest who owns surprisingly large amounts of real estate in and around London, and the demon is a a pitch-black spectral monkey with glowing red eyes and a diabolical grin. Even though Hesselius claims to have cured 57 (exactly) other people with a similar affliction, Jennings, after long suffering, cuts his own throat with an old fashioned straight razor. This kind of result is why Gillette made a fortune when inventing the safety razor. You definitely can't cut your throat from side to side with that one.
Hesselius chugs his failure to cure Jennings to his hereditary suicidal mania, since such theories were still a thing in the 1850s. And recommends against drinking green tea. (But the antioxidants!!)
Friday, September 21, 2018
"The House and the Brain" by Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton is a well known author of supernatural horror, but also was a politician and active socialite during his life in the mid-XIX century. HP Lovecraft mentions him in his essay on Supernatural Horror in Literature and admires his sense for the supernatural, but criticizes his obsession with spiritualism and the occult. This story is different as it deals with a haunted house, but not from cheap-thrills point of view, but from a scientific (for 1850s) stance and with underlying attempt to explain and understand the phenomenon, instead of just reveling in screams and shivers. I saw several reviews online complaining about the author using "Old English" words and writing in an "old style"??? Duh! It is written in the mid-1800s! Does anyone even research authors they read anymore??
Lovecraft's essay is a wonderful source of books to put on one's reading list if one is interested in how the contemporary horror genre came to be. Many of the books would be disappointing from today's point of view, used to visual media, quick development, twists and turns - some of the older books from the 1700s and 1800s could seem outright boring, but that's only for the unsophisticated and untrained reader. Even Lovecraft's books are slow, tedious and even boring by today's standards, but if we take in account the time and mores when they were written (no TV, no Internet, no Instant-Gratification-Culture) - they are straightforward revolutionary. The author of this blog has read a large percentage of the books mentioned in Lovecraft's essay, including the (possibly) non-fiction Francis Barrett volume.
Lytton's story intimates of a (very) haunted house in central London, where people who stay either run away or die in strange circumstances. The hero of the story is a researcher in occult matters and stays a night at the house during which frightening visions and apparitions occur, causing the death of his dog and permanent flight of his faithful servant, but he stays and survives the night only by the strength of his will and his knowledge of the occult theories.
He is persuaded that houses don't just get haunted of themselves, but there is a malicious human brain behind it which causes the frights and the misfortunes. He persuades the owner to completely destroy and dig out a part of the house where he finds strange occult apparatus and a miniature portrait of a person who apparently has lived for several centuries. Eventually the hero meets this person who is back to England from decades-long interval spent in the Middle East, and accuses him of putting the curse on the house and its inhabitants (including killing a small boy by starvation and abuse) almost a century ago and being the cause of all evil happenings in the house.
The strange man confirms the hero's suspicions but proves too strong and puts the hero in a hypnotic trance and uses him as a medium to see his own future and afterwards puts a spell on him not to be able to communicate about anything that happened for three months. Within those three months the malicious occultist disappears from England and the hero is afterwards released from the numbing spell and writes this story.
Lovecraft's essay is a wonderful source of books to put on one's reading list if one is interested in how the contemporary horror genre came to be. Many of the books would be disappointing from today's point of view, used to visual media, quick development, twists and turns - some of the older books from the 1700s and 1800s could seem outright boring, but that's only for the unsophisticated and untrained reader. Even Lovecraft's books are slow, tedious and even boring by today's standards, but if we take in account the time and mores when they were written (no TV, no Internet, no Instant-Gratification-Culture) - they are straightforward revolutionary. The author of this blog has read a large percentage of the books mentioned in Lovecraft's essay, including the (possibly) non-fiction Francis Barrett volume.
Lytton's story intimates of a (very) haunted house in central London, where people who stay either run away or die in strange circumstances. The hero of the story is a researcher in occult matters and stays a night at the house during which frightening visions and apparitions occur, causing the death of his dog and permanent flight of his faithful servant, but he stays and survives the night only by the strength of his will and his knowledge of the occult theories.
He is persuaded that houses don't just get haunted of themselves, but there is a malicious human brain behind it which causes the frights and the misfortunes. He persuades the owner to completely destroy and dig out a part of the house where he finds strange occult apparatus and a miniature portrait of a person who apparently has lived for several centuries. Eventually the hero meets this person who is back to England from decades-long interval spent in the Middle East, and accuses him of putting the curse on the house and its inhabitants (including killing a small boy by starvation and abuse) almost a century ago and being the cause of all evil happenings in the house.
The strange man confirms the hero's suspicions but proves too strong and puts the hero in a hypnotic trance and uses him as a medium to see his own future and afterwards puts a spell on him not to be able to communicate about anything that happened for three months. Within those three months the malicious occultist disappears from England and the hero is afterwards released from the numbing spell and writes this story.
Tuesday, August 28, 2018
"Time of Contempt" by Andrzej Sapkowski
This book continues the story from "Blood of Elves" and is thankfully better written, though no gem of literary value in any case.
Yennefer and Ciri go to "Wizard School" to enroll Ciri, but she escapes to Geralt, who eventually brings her back and rekindles his lifelong romance with Yenn in the process. Yenn has Geralt as her formal date for the BiGWiZaRdReCePtIoN which is mostly gossip, banter, vanity, poison and nastiness. However, further nastiness ensues when a coup is staged at the Wizard School after the reception, Nilfgardian camp agains Northern Kingdoms camp and in the process a bunch of people are killed, dismembered, tortured, broken, and similar fun stuff.
Ciri escapes, while Geralt is playing the buffer against the main Nilfgardian-allied wizard, who pretty much mops the floor with him and leaves him with every bone in his body broken, but still alive, just for fun. Meanwhile the Nilfgardian Emperor Emhyr receives a fake Ciri (lookalike) whom he wants to marry, and who is also his only daughter since Emhyr is the Hedgehog-man who marries Pavetta of Cintra. He doesn't mind incest, it seems, as long as it gets him Cintra under his belt. But he knows his Ciri is fake so sends people to find the real one.
Ciri is teleported to the "Frying Pan" desert of Korath where she survives only thanking to her magical powers and a Unicorn (I'm not kidding). But she gets captured by bounty hunters, who want to rape her, and brag about gang raping someones wife all night long so she couldn't move her arms and legs in the morning. Tells you about the time and customs in which this Saga is happening.
The bounty hunters/gang-bangers get slaughtered and cut into pieces by a band of merry thieves and brigands called "The Rats" who eventually allow Ciri to join them under the name Falka (a grand-grand mother of Ciri, but no one knows that - yet). The book ends with Nilfgard hiring a top bounty hunter to kill all the "Rats" including Ciri.
To be continued.
Yennefer and Ciri go to "Wizard School" to enroll Ciri, but she escapes to Geralt, who eventually brings her back and rekindles his lifelong romance with Yenn in the process. Yenn has Geralt as her formal date for the BiGWiZaRdReCePtIoN which is mostly gossip, banter, vanity, poison and nastiness. However, further nastiness ensues when a coup is staged at the Wizard School after the reception, Nilfgardian camp agains Northern Kingdoms camp and in the process a bunch of people are killed, dismembered, tortured, broken, and similar fun stuff.
Ciri escapes, while Geralt is playing the buffer against the main Nilfgardian-allied wizard, who pretty much mops the floor with him and leaves him with every bone in his body broken, but still alive, just for fun. Meanwhile the Nilfgardian Emperor Emhyr receives a fake Ciri (lookalike) whom he wants to marry, and who is also his only daughter since Emhyr is the Hedgehog-man who marries Pavetta of Cintra. He doesn't mind incest, it seems, as long as it gets him Cintra under his belt. But he knows his Ciri is fake so sends people to find the real one.
Ciri is teleported to the "Frying Pan" desert of Korath where she survives only thanking to her magical powers and a Unicorn (I'm not kidding). But she gets captured by bounty hunters, who want to rape her, and brag about gang raping someones wife all night long so she couldn't move her arms and legs in the morning. Tells you about the time and customs in which this Saga is happening.
The bounty hunters/gang-bangers get slaughtered and cut into pieces by a band of merry thieves and brigands called "The Rats" who eventually allow Ciri to join them under the name Falka (a grand-grand mother of Ciri, but no one knows that - yet). The book ends with Nilfgard hiring a top bounty hunter to kill all the "Rats" including Ciri.
To be continued.
"Sword of Destiny" by Andrzej Sapkowski
The "Sword of Destiny" is the second book in the Witcher Saga by its internal chronology, although most of the stories have been written before the ones in "The Last Wish". These stories are longer, more convoluted and less exciting than the ones in the previous collection.
"The Bounds of Reason" is about a dragon-hunter dragon who is also a human and a couple of sexy female bodyguards who seem to have been lifted straight out of a Conan story.
"A Shard of Ice" is about Yennefer's and Geralt's relationship and the promiscuous life Yenn used to lead, and still leads to some extent. After all, a couple of hundred years in a young, enhanced female body coupled with magical powers is probably a strong motivator for any female to play the field as much as physically possible.
"A Little Sacrifice" is about a mermaid being in love with a human (a local nobleman asshole, go figure), and starving Geralt working for free because he has to much principle and dignity to slaughter every self-indulgent prick who insults him (as he justly should). He is also too principled to take a woman's heart (and body) while knowing he cannot reciprocate long-term, even though the woman is also a smart and talented bard (Little Eye) who would want nothing more in the world. Dandelion is pretty cool here too.
"The Sword of Destiny" is starting the Ciri Saga which will be the main theme for the rest of the 6 volumes. She is 14-15 here and abducted (kind of) by the Forest Dryads who are getting ready to make her one of their own (as they steal human children and mutate them through poisons and potions to increase their ranks). Eventually Geralt gets her out and their lifelong adventures begin. Their banter is priceless.
"Something More" concludes the collection and it is about Ciri becoming entangled with Geralt forever. A theme before was that "Destiny is not Enough", but here Ciri says to Geralt "I am your Destiny" and Geralt replies "You are Something More". Pretty cool.
Overall this collection is weaker and worse written than "The Last Wish" but definitely better than "Blood of Elves" as nothing can be as bad as that one. I read a bunch of reviews moaning how sexist the book is - newsflash - the entire saga happens in 12th century Poland when women were treated as something marginally better than furniture or livestock. Imposing 2018 standards on the past is moronic. The past is what it was and it should be fully described as such, not embellished or "updated".
"The Bounds of Reason" is about a dragon-hunter dragon who is also a human and a couple of sexy female bodyguards who seem to have been lifted straight out of a Conan story.
"A Shard of Ice" is about Yennefer's and Geralt's relationship and the promiscuous life Yenn used to lead, and still leads to some extent. After all, a couple of hundred years in a young, enhanced female body coupled with magical powers is probably a strong motivator for any female to play the field as much as physically possible.
"A Little Sacrifice" is about a mermaid being in love with a human (a local nobleman asshole, go figure), and starving Geralt working for free because he has to much principle and dignity to slaughter every self-indulgent prick who insults him (as he justly should). He is also too principled to take a woman's heart (and body) while knowing he cannot reciprocate long-term, even though the woman is also a smart and talented bard (Little Eye) who would want nothing more in the world. Dandelion is pretty cool here too.
"The Sword of Destiny" is starting the Ciri Saga which will be the main theme for the rest of the 6 volumes. She is 14-15 here and abducted (kind of) by the Forest Dryads who are getting ready to make her one of their own (as they steal human children and mutate them through poisons and potions to increase their ranks). Eventually Geralt gets her out and their lifelong adventures begin. Their banter is priceless.
"Something More" concludes the collection and it is about Ciri becoming entangled with Geralt forever. A theme before was that "Destiny is not Enough", but here Ciri says to Geralt "I am your Destiny" and Geralt replies "You are Something More". Pretty cool.
Overall this collection is weaker and worse written than "The Last Wish" but definitely better than "Blood of Elves" as nothing can be as bad as that one. I read a bunch of reviews moaning how sexist the book is - newsflash - the entire saga happens in 12th century Poland when women were treated as something marginally better than furniture or livestock. Imposing 2018 standards on the past is moronic. The past is what it was and it should be fully described as such, not embellished or "updated".
Monday, July 23, 2018
"The Light of Other Days" by Stephen Baxter and Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur Clarke lured me into lifelong science fiction fandom. I still remember reading his "Against the Fall of Night" and long afterwards dreaming about the cities of Diaspar and Liz. Eventually I made up my mind to read everything Clarke ever wrote, and almost finished all his fiction works! Almost, but not quite. Although I read Clarke's non-fiction as well, I was less impressed by it than by his fiction. I really liked the Mysterious World series on TV, and bought the book that went with it (actually all three books), but I was disappointed that the book was written by other people, while Clarke would only give his thoughts on the chapter/episode subject matter.
"The light of other days" is a similar case. It is written by Stephen Baxter based on a synopsis (probably just an idea) by Clarke. It uses elements from Clarke's "Childhood's End" which is one of the most amazing books I've ever read.
The idea is along Einsten's joke that if you had a lens powerful enough you could see around the curvature of the Universe, and thus see the past. You wouldn't be able to travel back in time, as that is always to remain impossible because of entropy and preservation of mass, but you would be able to see the light of the past and thus also the images that light is carrying. There is no such thing as physical time travel and there will never be one (otherwise we'd be swarmed with time tourists already), despite the silly story arches in sci-fi shows. Also no one will every be able to influence the past, since light travels only one way, from the past to the present and the future.
Baxter's book talks about a WormCam, which is a wormhole into time and space, that can see light from past events, pretty much anywhere and anytime. Besides the romantic story and the sociological didactic story about a self-made billionaire creating a clone of himself in order to be in full control (spoilers!!!), the book is mostly a speculation on what changes in society and people when everybody knows that they are under constant surveillance at every moment of their existence.
Obviously the society as we know it would fall apart, as everyone sane knows that it is based on lies, delusions and secrets, that are mostly getting passed for "morality and rules." When everyone knows everything about everyone else, politics and crime are almost impossible, while people start walking around naked and having sex in public, as everyone can see them through a WormCam nomatter where and when.
Also many myths fall apart, like Jesus, Moses, Ice Age, Human Ancestors, Columbus, etc. as now everyone can see what really happened (or nothing happened at all!) and uncover the lies and cover ups in the official versions.
Interesting book, but it has the attraction of non-fiction, more than that of a fiction book.
"The light of other days" is a similar case. It is written by Stephen Baxter based on a synopsis (probably just an idea) by Clarke. It uses elements from Clarke's "Childhood's End" which is one of the most amazing books I've ever read.
The idea is along Einsten's joke that if you had a lens powerful enough you could see around the curvature of the Universe, and thus see the past. You wouldn't be able to travel back in time, as that is always to remain impossible because of entropy and preservation of mass, but you would be able to see the light of the past and thus also the images that light is carrying. There is no such thing as physical time travel and there will never be one (otherwise we'd be swarmed with time tourists already), despite the silly story arches in sci-fi shows. Also no one will every be able to influence the past, since light travels only one way, from the past to the present and the future.
Baxter's book talks about a WormCam, which is a wormhole into time and space, that can see light from past events, pretty much anywhere and anytime. Besides the romantic story and the sociological didactic story about a self-made billionaire creating a clone of himself in order to be in full control (spoilers!!!), the book is mostly a speculation on what changes in society and people when everybody knows that they are under constant surveillance at every moment of their existence.
Obviously the society as we know it would fall apart, as everyone sane knows that it is based on lies, delusions and secrets, that are mostly getting passed for "morality and rules." When everyone knows everything about everyone else, politics and crime are almost impossible, while people start walking around naked and having sex in public, as everyone can see them through a WormCam nomatter where and when.
Also many myths fall apart, like Jesus, Moses, Ice Age, Human Ancestors, Columbus, etc. as now everyone can see what really happened (or nothing happened at all!) and uncover the lies and cover ups in the official versions.
Interesting book, but it has the attraction of non-fiction, more than that of a fiction book.
"The Last Wish" by Andrzej Sapkowski
This is the first book of The Witcher heptalogy (so far) and it is actually good! Well, anything would be good compared to "Blood of Elves" so the bar was not particularly high. This book is presented as a collection of short stories, and it is true that many of the stories have been published before in various magazines, but the first story is an over-arching narrative within which the other stories are presented as chapters in Chaucerian style, as stories told by Geralt to various people while waiting in the temple for his wounds to recuperate.
"The Voice of Reason" is the over-arching story, giving us insight into how the local authorities view the witchers (hint, horribly, which is tenuous, because witchers perform enormous services to the government and the people by taking on monsters that even the bravest (?) knights and soldiers are afraid to do. In fairy tales witchers would be offered kings' daughters hands in marriage for the things they do, but Sapkowski has them treated as vermin. Unconvincing.).
"The Witcher" (Wiedzmin) is the first story about Geralt ever published by Sapkowski back in 1986. It tells of how Geralt defeated the stryga which was actually illegitimate child of King Foltest's incestuous relationship with his own sister.
"A grain of truth" is the second story and my favorite, telling about a monster-looking man who is not actually a monster (doesn't react to silver). He was cursed by a temple priestess to transform outwardly into a monster while he was raping her in order to "become a man" as his father told him. Nivellen, the monster-man, actually finds out that many merchants are happy to leave their daughters for a year at his disposal, in exchange for a share of his treasure. The daughters themselves, to the last one, enjoy the sexual prowess of the monster-man quite a lot, after the initial acclimatization. However Nivellen longs for true love which can lift the curse and that comes in a form of a Bruxa, a super-vampira, which can turn invisible and has a sonic attack that renders people unconscious. Geralt defeats the Bruxa with Nivellen's help, and with her dying breath she professes true love for Nivellen, who is also mortally wounded by her, and just before he dies, he is transformed back into a man.
"The Lesser Evil" tells the story of how Geralt, undeservedly, got to be called "The Butcher of Blaviken." He kills a group of thugs who intend to kill the market-goers in the city of Blaviken, but the locals were unaware of the thugs intention, so they think Geralt frivolously committed a massacre. Renfri, the beautiful leader of the thugs, is actually a princess who cast away by the wizard Stregobor and her evil mother, sent to a forest with a hunter to kill her. But the hunter, in his "mercy" doesn't kill her, but rapes her, robs her of all she has and lets her go. The following years Renfri spends begging for food and being raped by various men for shelter, but eventually grows strong and becomes an assassin who now wants to kill Stregobor. Geralt refuses to choose between the greater and lesser evil, saying all evils are the same. Renfri sleeps with him saying she will leave town the next morning, but she goes to kill Stregobor. When Geralt confronts her and tells her to leave town or be killed, she decides to fight him and inevitably is cut open by Geralt. With her last words she tries to lure Geralt closer, but he doesn't fall for it, and as she dies a sharp dagger falls out of her clutched hand. Geralt is exiled from Blaviken forever.
The third story, "A question of price" is a precursor to much of what happens later in the books and the games. Queen Calanthe of Cintra is marrying her daughter Pavetta, who just turned 15, for a political alliance, but a man-hedgehog (urcheon) appears claiming he has a right to her already. Pavetta turns out not only to have already chosen the urcheon-man, but is already pregnant with his child. This child is to be Cirilla, or Ciri, who is the main plot device for all the later books and all The Witcher games.
The fourth story, "The end of the world" is probably the weakest, but it sets the stage of how Elves are treated in The Witcher universe and their ultimately inevitable demise.
The fifth story, "The Last Wish" is about when Geralt first met Yennefer, the love of his life. She has had pretty wild love life before Geralt and initially does't pay him much attention, even being very crude and rude to him yelling "you would like to lick my tits, and something else." This changes when Geralt saves her from a genie, which she thought she could put under her control, and the genie insists of fulfilling a wish of Geralt's who wishes that he and Yennefer are bound together forever. At the moment of the wishes fulfillment, he has an insight that Yennefer was a hunchback before becoming a sorceress, which was common at the time, since parents only gave their daughters for sorceress school if there was no chance of them ever getting married. The sorceress training corrected her physical flaws and made her beautiful (although not conventionally, Sapkowski says).
"The Voice of Reason" is the over-arching story, giving us insight into how the local authorities view the witchers (hint, horribly, which is tenuous, because witchers perform enormous services to the government and the people by taking on monsters that even the bravest (?) knights and soldiers are afraid to do. In fairy tales witchers would be offered kings' daughters hands in marriage for the things they do, but Sapkowski has them treated as vermin. Unconvincing.).
"The Witcher" (Wiedzmin) is the first story about Geralt ever published by Sapkowski back in 1986. It tells of how Geralt defeated the stryga which was actually illegitimate child of King Foltest's incestuous relationship with his own sister.
"A grain of truth" is the second story and my favorite, telling about a monster-looking man who is not actually a monster (doesn't react to silver). He was cursed by a temple priestess to transform outwardly into a monster while he was raping her in order to "become a man" as his father told him. Nivellen, the monster-man, actually finds out that many merchants are happy to leave their daughters for a year at his disposal, in exchange for a share of his treasure. The daughters themselves, to the last one, enjoy the sexual prowess of the monster-man quite a lot, after the initial acclimatization. However Nivellen longs for true love which can lift the curse and that comes in a form of a Bruxa, a super-vampira, which can turn invisible and has a sonic attack that renders people unconscious. Geralt defeats the Bruxa with Nivellen's help, and with her dying breath she professes true love for Nivellen, who is also mortally wounded by her, and just before he dies, he is transformed back into a man.
"The Lesser Evil" tells the story of how Geralt, undeservedly, got to be called "The Butcher of Blaviken." He kills a group of thugs who intend to kill the market-goers in the city of Blaviken, but the locals were unaware of the thugs intention, so they think Geralt frivolously committed a massacre. Renfri, the beautiful leader of the thugs, is actually a princess who cast away by the wizard Stregobor and her evil mother, sent to a forest with a hunter to kill her. But the hunter, in his "mercy" doesn't kill her, but rapes her, robs her of all she has and lets her go. The following years Renfri spends begging for food and being raped by various men for shelter, but eventually grows strong and becomes an assassin who now wants to kill Stregobor. Geralt refuses to choose between the greater and lesser evil, saying all evils are the same. Renfri sleeps with him saying she will leave town the next morning, but she goes to kill Stregobor. When Geralt confronts her and tells her to leave town or be killed, she decides to fight him and inevitably is cut open by Geralt. With her last words she tries to lure Geralt closer, but he doesn't fall for it, and as she dies a sharp dagger falls out of her clutched hand. Geralt is exiled from Blaviken forever.
The third story, "A question of price" is a precursor to much of what happens later in the books and the games. Queen Calanthe of Cintra is marrying her daughter Pavetta, who just turned 15, for a political alliance, but a man-hedgehog (urcheon) appears claiming he has a right to her already. Pavetta turns out not only to have already chosen the urcheon-man, but is already pregnant with his child. This child is to be Cirilla, or Ciri, who is the main plot device for all the later books and all The Witcher games.
The fourth story, "The end of the world" is probably the weakest, but it sets the stage of how Elves are treated in The Witcher universe and their ultimately inevitable demise.
The fifth story, "The Last Wish" is about when Geralt first met Yennefer, the love of his life. She has had pretty wild love life before Geralt and initially does't pay him much attention, even being very crude and rude to him yelling "you would like to lick my tits, and something else." This changes when Geralt saves her from a genie, which she thought she could put under her control, and the genie insists of fulfilling a wish of Geralt's who wishes that he and Yennefer are bound together forever. At the moment of the wishes fulfillment, he has an insight that Yennefer was a hunchback before becoming a sorceress, which was common at the time, since parents only gave their daughters for sorceress school if there was no chance of them ever getting married. The sorceress training corrected her physical flaws and made her beautiful (although not conventionally, Sapkowski says).
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
"Blood of Elves" by Andrzej Sapkowski
This is the first novel in "The Witcher" pentalogy of novels (for now), and if you count the first two collections of Witcher short stories, then this is the third book in a fantasy heptalogy. Sapkowski published his first Witcher (Wiedzmin) story in his native Poland in 1986. The books were apparently very popular in Eastern Europe, but they really got to be known in the west after the Polish software/gaming company CD Project RED published the series of Witcher games, the third installment of which, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is proclaimed by many specialized magazines and sites as the "Best Action RPG of all time" (btw, Action RPG is different from just RPG).
Well, the author of this blog LOVES the game Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and has already sunk about 120 hours of playing into it (still just level 31, and haven't finished the main story, nor started the DLCs). And because (obviously) the author of this blog also loves to read, he (yes, a guy! how curious!) also found the books, that is the English translations, by Sapkowski and started reading.
Let me tell you form the get go that if you expected something of Tolkien or even Martin quality - you will be very disappointed. The writing is much poorer, and so are the characters and plots. However it is not that bad. True, the first 150 pages of "Blood of Elves" are so boring and horribly written that it is an act of masochism to force yourself to read them, but it gets better. The last 50 pages are actually gripping.
You will meet familiar characters from the games, the Witchers: Geralt, Vessimir, Eskell, Lambert; the Sorceresses: Triss Merigold, Yennefer of Venderberg, Philippa and others; and the other assortment of characters: Dandelion, Zoltan. the Scoia'tail, the Nilfgardians, and of course, Ciri. The characters have much more dialogue, and do not sound exactly like in the games, but the differences are welcome. There are differences in characters' looks and manners from the games (Triss does not show a neck cleavage), but they are not major.
The book starts after the conquest of Cintra and many parties looking for Ciri, the last heir to Cintra's throne and possessing Elder Blood which gives her special powers. Geralt saves her and takes her to Kaer Morhen, the Witchers' fortress, to be hidden but also trained as a Witcher, though there have never been female Witchers in the entire history. Eventually Triss Merigold arrives at Kaer Morhen to give Ciri a female perspective and advises that Ciri is moved somewhere else because many sorcerers already learned about her location.
Many betrayals and battles happen during the moving but eventually Ciri is given as a ward to Yennefer who undertakes to train her as a sorceress. After initially butting heads, Ciri and Yennefer take to each other and the actual sorcery training begins. The book ends with Ciri learning telekinesis and Yennefer comparing the Witcher's Aard sign to real telekinetic sorcery.
Well, the author of this blog LOVES the game Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and has already sunk about 120 hours of playing into it (still just level 31, and haven't finished the main story, nor started the DLCs). And because (obviously) the author of this blog also loves to read, he (yes, a guy! how curious!) also found the books, that is the English translations, by Sapkowski and started reading.
Let me tell you form the get go that if you expected something of Tolkien or even Martin quality - you will be very disappointed. The writing is much poorer, and so are the characters and plots. However it is not that bad. True, the first 150 pages of "Blood of Elves" are so boring and horribly written that it is an act of masochism to force yourself to read them, but it gets better. The last 50 pages are actually gripping.
You will meet familiar characters from the games, the Witchers: Geralt, Vessimir, Eskell, Lambert; the Sorceresses: Triss Merigold, Yennefer of Venderberg, Philippa and others; and the other assortment of characters: Dandelion, Zoltan. the Scoia'tail, the Nilfgardians, and of course, Ciri. The characters have much more dialogue, and do not sound exactly like in the games, but the differences are welcome. There are differences in characters' looks and manners from the games (Triss does not show a neck cleavage), but they are not major.
The book starts after the conquest of Cintra and many parties looking for Ciri, the last heir to Cintra's throne and possessing Elder Blood which gives her special powers. Geralt saves her and takes her to Kaer Morhen, the Witchers' fortress, to be hidden but also trained as a Witcher, though there have never been female Witchers in the entire history. Eventually Triss Merigold arrives at Kaer Morhen to give Ciri a female perspective and advises that Ciri is moved somewhere else because many sorcerers already learned about her location.
Many betrayals and battles happen during the moving but eventually Ciri is given as a ward to Yennefer who undertakes to train her as a sorceress. After initially butting heads, Ciri and Yennefer take to each other and the actual sorcery training begins. The book ends with Ciri learning telekinesis and Yennefer comparing the Witcher's Aard sign to real telekinetic sorcery.
Friday, April 6, 2018
"The Art of Invisibility" by Kevin Mitnick
The Art of Invisibility is the latest book by Kevin Mitnick, published in 2017, so it is pretty current with the events happening in the tech world, as books like these very soon become obsolete because of the flood of new information and happenings.
Mitnick talks about how easy it is to figure out someone's moves online only if you knew some basic information and gives examples from his past life as a hacker. The bottom line is that it is very difficult to be invisible or anonymous online, even if one has a perfectly good and legal reason for it, like being harassed for example.
His previous book, the autobiographical "Ghost in the Wires" is a much more exciting read, and it seems like this book has been cobbled together to take some advantage of Mitnick's name and brand (which is fading nowadays), and pull together some advice that can readily be found around the internet and organize it in one place.
Most of the advice in the book can be found around the internet, and is nothing terribly complicated, but all recommendations come down to either not be online at all (the best way), or if you do to keep separate, anonymously purchased devices and accounts for the anonymous dealings online.
It is unclear if the main purpose of the book is to protect your sensitive data online (for example your banking info and logins, but then again, you cannot be anonymous to your bank), or how to be anonymous in your writings/actions online.
There is some good advice on never keeping browser history, using plugins like EFF HTTPS Everywhere, NoScript, AdBlocker and Ghostery, and also using TOR in order not to be tracked by your ISP or social media sites, however most of the book is anecdotes from the life of Kevin Mitnick.
Mitnick talks about how easy it is to figure out someone's moves online only if you knew some basic information and gives examples from his past life as a hacker. The bottom line is that it is very difficult to be invisible or anonymous online, even if one has a perfectly good and legal reason for it, like being harassed for example.
His previous book, the autobiographical "Ghost in the Wires" is a much more exciting read, and it seems like this book has been cobbled together to take some advantage of Mitnick's name and brand (which is fading nowadays), and pull together some advice that can readily be found around the internet and organize it in one place.
Most of the advice in the book can be found around the internet, and is nothing terribly complicated, but all recommendations come down to either not be online at all (the best way), or if you do to keep separate, anonymously purchased devices and accounts for the anonymous dealings online.
It is unclear if the main purpose of the book is to protect your sensitive data online (for example your banking info and logins, but then again, you cannot be anonymous to your bank), or how to be anonymous in your writings/actions online.
There is some good advice on never keeping browser history, using plugins like EFF HTTPS Everywhere, NoScript, AdBlocker and Ghostery, and also using TOR in order not to be tracked by your ISP or social media sites, however most of the book is anecdotes from the life of Kevin Mitnick.
Tuesday, March 13, 2018
"Ghost in the Wires" by Kevin Mitnick
Unlike his other books, this one is pretty much an autobiography of Mitnick. The book starts when he's a teenager who doesn't really fit in the common social groups and starts to do HAM radio chats to find friends. HAM radio leads to phone "phreaking" which leads to computer hacking. He starts small, hacking free long distance for his mother, then hacking school computer systems - "just for fun", then moving onto hacking commercial companies like DEC and downloading source code for their top paid Operating Systems, like VMS. All for fun, of course, he claims that he never sold any information or code, and never used any credit card numbers that he obtained. This might as well be true, as he pretty much lived most of the time around the poverty line standard, and if he really made a huge amount of money with his hacks there would be no need for him to beg his mother and grandmother to sponsor him from their meager savings.
His hacker friends have pretty much all betrayed him to the authorities, and even though some of them he forgave (why?), he does claim that the ancient proverb "There's no honor amongst thieves" is still very true and valid. His best friend not only betrays him to the feds, but also becomes his wife's lover, which is a really shitty thing to do.
The feds come off as some horrible people, and so do pretty much all law enforcement people in the book, with a few honorable exceptions. Sometimes these things ring true, like Mitnick being put in solitary and in top security prisons with uber-violent offenders, while in reality he was never aggressive or violent towards anybody. Seems that his reputation and rumors have scared law enforcement people and judges and they wanted to err on the cautious and punitive side, because they really did not understand the subject matter and did not want to be played for fools.
Mitnick is amazing in what he calls "Social Engineering" which most people would call "lying" and passes himself for a variety of different people, even cops and FBI officers, and extracts all kind of information from unsuspecting patsies who should have known better. Mitnick is very proud of his Social Engineering skills, and often describes the meticulous research with which he approaches every such situation.
Eventually he does get caught, despite having piles of birth certificates (from South Dakota!), false identities and all kinds of phone faking equipment. He spends some pretty rough time, a couple of years, while waiting for trail, and is so broke he cannot even afford his own lawyer. He gets sentenced to a couple of years, after which he becomes a security consultant where the book ends. This book is published much after the "Takedown" book which describes his case from the POV of the law enforcement people, because the judge ordered that Mitnick is not to profit from his story for a certain amount of years afterwards.
Today, some people even forgot Mitnick - I read a review on Amazon claiming that Julian Assange (!) is a bigger hacker. Newsflash: Assange is a journalist, not a hacker. I guess time destroys everything, which is why even bloodthirsty tyrants are seen in a positive light after a few centuries have passed.
The book is written in a very easy, conversational style and is monotone and repetitive at times, but still a good read. At some points the reader wants to yell "Kev, don't do it! Why would you do that Kev, when you know you're sure to get caught?" but I guess there's some compulsion at play here, so we cannot assume a totally logical actor.
His hacker friends have pretty much all betrayed him to the authorities, and even though some of them he forgave (why?), he does claim that the ancient proverb "There's no honor amongst thieves" is still very true and valid. His best friend not only betrays him to the feds, but also becomes his wife's lover, which is a really shitty thing to do.
The feds come off as some horrible people, and so do pretty much all law enforcement people in the book, with a few honorable exceptions. Sometimes these things ring true, like Mitnick being put in solitary and in top security prisons with uber-violent offenders, while in reality he was never aggressive or violent towards anybody. Seems that his reputation and rumors have scared law enforcement people and judges and they wanted to err on the cautious and punitive side, because they really did not understand the subject matter and did not want to be played for fools.
Mitnick is amazing in what he calls "Social Engineering" which most people would call "lying" and passes himself for a variety of different people, even cops and FBI officers, and extracts all kind of information from unsuspecting patsies who should have known better. Mitnick is very proud of his Social Engineering skills, and often describes the meticulous research with which he approaches every such situation.
Eventually he does get caught, despite having piles of birth certificates (from South Dakota!), false identities and all kinds of phone faking equipment. He spends some pretty rough time, a couple of years, while waiting for trail, and is so broke he cannot even afford his own lawyer. He gets sentenced to a couple of years, after which he becomes a security consultant where the book ends. This book is published much after the "Takedown" book which describes his case from the POV of the law enforcement people, because the judge ordered that Mitnick is not to profit from his story for a certain amount of years afterwards.
Today, some people even forgot Mitnick - I read a review on Amazon claiming that Julian Assange (!) is a bigger hacker. Newsflash: Assange is a journalist, not a hacker. I guess time destroys everything, which is why even bloodthirsty tyrants are seen in a positive light after a few centuries have passed.
The book is written in a very easy, conversational style and is monotone and repetitive at times, but still a good read. At some points the reader wants to yell "Kev, don't do it! Why would you do that Kev, when you know you're sure to get caught?" but I guess there's some compulsion at play here, so we cannot assume a totally logical actor.
Thursday, March 1, 2018
"Red Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson
I had this book on my reading list for a long time, but deprioritized it multiple times, as stories about Mars never much interested me. Mars has always seemed mundane, and little green Martians never stroke any kind of connection to me, neither did stories of Mars colonization (why waste all that money, time and resources when we can just build generation ships like Clarke's Rama, or make asteroids inhabitable). On the other hand, this novel has won both the Hugo and Nebula awards, and that is usually a good indicator of an amazing novel (to think I'd never discover The Wind-Up Girl or The Three Body Problem if I didn't scour the Hugo and Nebula awards - two best Sci Fi works of modern times!).
Not in this case. The novel is pretty average; the science is OK, but nothing special, the characters are paper thin, hollow shells, uninteresting and devoid of complexity, basically just reciting replicas without any real feeling. John Boone, the wild west super hero that's addicted to drugs, Frank Chalmers, the bad guy who is really just incompetent and petty, and Maya Toitovna (I can't help but reading her last name as Hoyti-Toytovna each time :) the materialistic Russian chick who uses her vagina to achieve her goals, and of course the all-mysterious Hiroko Ai (Ai is love in Japanese), who is supposed to add exoticism to the story, especially with her relation to The Coyote (another useless character), and her acting as the Queen Mother Bee to an army of children later. Why do Western authors think Japanese are exotic? Japanese cultural tropes are a mainstay in the Western World, only if you take a little time to look.
The "First 100" get over to Mars on Ares, the long-haul ship assembled in space. Once they get there, the primitive primate brain takes over and they fuck (a lot!), cheat each other, kill each other, split in petty little groups, based on petty beliefs and become a sort of the Wild West for Earth, which is overpopulated and ran by huge corporation (TransNats). Eventually there's a rebellion because the TransNats keep sending more immigrants to Mars and the local infrastructure cannot support it, many people are killed, most infrastructure is destroyed, but not everybody and not all, because, of course, we have a sequel coming!
Overall a very boring and disappointing book - I will not be reading the sequels.
Not in this case. The novel is pretty average; the science is OK, but nothing special, the characters are paper thin, hollow shells, uninteresting and devoid of complexity, basically just reciting replicas without any real feeling. John Boone, the wild west super hero that's addicted to drugs, Frank Chalmers, the bad guy who is really just incompetent and petty, and Maya Toitovna (I can't help but reading her last name as Hoyti-Toytovna each time :) the materialistic Russian chick who uses her vagina to achieve her goals, and of course the all-mysterious Hiroko Ai (Ai is love in Japanese), who is supposed to add exoticism to the story, especially with her relation to The Coyote (another useless character), and her acting as the Queen Mother Bee to an army of children later. Why do Western authors think Japanese are exotic? Japanese cultural tropes are a mainstay in the Western World, only if you take a little time to look.
The "First 100" get over to Mars on Ares, the long-haul ship assembled in space. Once they get there, the primitive primate brain takes over and they fuck (a lot!), cheat each other, kill each other, split in petty little groups, based on petty beliefs and become a sort of the Wild West for Earth, which is overpopulated and ran by huge corporation (TransNats). Eventually there's a rebellion because the TransNats keep sending more immigrants to Mars and the local infrastructure cannot support it, many people are killed, most infrastructure is destroyed, but not everybody and not all, because, of course, we have a sequel coming!
Overall a very boring and disappointing book - I will not be reading the sequels.
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
"Conscience : The Search for Truth" by P.D. Ouspensky
This book, which in reality is five different essays put together, develops some of the topics that are present in Gurdjieff's and Ouspensky's writings and system. The system is, of course, Gurdjieff's, while Ouspensky is the most advanced pupil. There are passages from the "In Search Of The Miraculous" interspersed throughout, but most of the material is from talks and answers to questions that Ouspensky gave.
In the first part, “Memory,” Ouspensky gives some insights on memory formation and durability that are not yet discovered by modern neuroscience but ring true to one's experience.
In the second part, “Surface Personality,” principles of the self are explained and the false or surface personality explained, as a necessary but, in a correct setup, subservient part of the unified personality. Unfortunately, the modern science called Psychology devotes most of its breadth to researching this surface or false personality.
In the third part, “Self-Will,” the difference between will, or Real Will, is juxtaposed to Self Will, or what is usually thought of as will in everyday language. The real will does not exist in the vast majority of humans which are thrown around by the resultant of the sum of forces of all the vectors that are influencing them, without the possibility, even the smallest one, of a personal choice, except in trivial and non-consequential matters.
In the fourth part, “Negative Emotions,” Ouspensky talks about the utter uselessness of negative emotions, which include angers, sadness, depression, patriotism, sports rooting and pretty much everything that saps and wastes energy rather than preserving and storing it. He points out to a common misconsception that a man who exresess negative emotions (in the wider, Ouspensky sense), is honest and genuine, instead saying that such a person is weak and self-indulgent.
The final part, “Notes on Work,” an emphasis is put that development on one's own is utterly impossible, but only through a school with a teacher on another level of being any kind of progress can be made. Otherwise all work would be just in the imagination, i.e. imagining one is working instead or thinking about working, rather than actually doing the work.
In the first part, “Memory,” Ouspensky gives some insights on memory formation and durability that are not yet discovered by modern neuroscience but ring true to one's experience.
In the second part, “Surface Personality,” principles of the self are explained and the false or surface personality explained, as a necessary but, in a correct setup, subservient part of the unified personality. Unfortunately, the modern science called Psychology devotes most of its breadth to researching this surface or false personality.
In the third part, “Self-Will,” the difference between will, or Real Will, is juxtaposed to Self Will, or what is usually thought of as will in everyday language. The real will does not exist in the vast majority of humans which are thrown around by the resultant of the sum of forces of all the vectors that are influencing them, without the possibility, even the smallest one, of a personal choice, except in trivial and non-consequential matters.
In the fourth part, “Negative Emotions,” Ouspensky talks about the utter uselessness of negative emotions, which include angers, sadness, depression, patriotism, sports rooting and pretty much everything that saps and wastes energy rather than preserving and storing it. He points out to a common misconsception that a man who exresess negative emotions (in the wider, Ouspensky sense), is honest and genuine, instead saying that such a person is weak and self-indulgent.
The final part, “Notes on Work,” an emphasis is put that development on one's own is utterly impossible, but only through a school with a teacher on another level of being any kind of progress can be made. Otherwise all work would be just in the imagination, i.e. imagining one is working instead or thinking about working, rather than actually doing the work.
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