Does anyone still read this thing?

Or is it just me? I was thinking about doing some more reading, if anyone is interested in joining me.

Might as Well: 1984

Well, I finished reading George Orwell's 1984. It is the more brilliant of Orwell's anti-Stalinist books, the other being Animal Farm. I found Animal Farm rather tepid a few years ago, when I read it. I felt that it perhaps lost a lot of its power, now that we no longer live in fear of the Godless Communist Russians. However, 1984, is still startlingly relevant to the way that power is gotten today, whether it is the constant fear mongering to which we we are subjected, or the way in which war is used to maintain and propagate economic instability. I don't even know if Orwell intended the book to be aimed at more than Stalinist Russia, but, to borrow from Eric Fromm's essay at the end of the book, it means us.

If anyone still looks at this page and is interested in further discussion of this book, add comments to this post, and maybe drop me a line telling me that you have.

Peace.

Mountains Beyond Mountains

Did anyone end up actually reading the book? The due date was Nov 1, right?

Josh's impressions on The Five People you Meet in Heaven

I just finished The Five People you Meet in Heaven.

I was pleased to see that the book mostly avoided overt religious overtones, and the core idea, that heaven means we get to have our lives explained to us, is somewhat interesting and different.

Beyond that, however, the book seemed a bit hollow to me. While reading, I got the feeling that it was trying too hard to be inspirational, and I can't help but think that the author consciously intended to write a book that Oprah Winfrey-types would gobble up, rather than something from the heart that reflects the realities of life.

I agree with Sreenath (or "freedom man", as it were) that some parts seemed cliche and designed to appeal to the lowest common denomenator. I've never read Tuesdays with Morrie, but I also got the feeling that Albom was trying to rake in more dollars from his previous success.

But with a name like "The Five People you Meet in Heaven" none of this was terribly surprising. Without thinking about it too much, I liked it. In the end it made for a nice quick read that was a pleasant diversion from the types of books that normally occupy my time.

BTW, wtf is Eddie doing waltzing with his brother at the end of "The First Lesson" (chapter 5?) ?

Cheers.

Done

Due to unforseen circumstances, this book suddenly made it to the top of my reading list, and I found myself reading it over a couple of nights. At first glance, I realize that this makes it seem like the book was really good, but this is not the case. Everyone I talked to about the book said that it was really good, but I don't really see what the fuss is about. I realize now that the reason that I shot through the book is that I kept trying to find a point, and I kept getting irritated when I could not. So, to try to calm my frustration, I kept reading to find the point.

People kept telling me not to form my opinion of the book until the end. I won't say what it is, but it much more of an antithesis than I thought, in part because it was so predictable. To me, this book is mostly an attempt to effect some strong emotion in the reader without really saying anything. The point of reading the book is more to feel than to think. There's nothing wrong with this, of course, besides the failing of the book to do what it sets out to do. I know that it is trite, but I am going to go ahead and throw the word "cliche" at this book.

I was a fan Albom's other book, Tuesday With Morrie, at least much more so than this one. It seemed to me that TWM was written because he had a story that he needed to tell. It was written much more from the heart, and was full of feeling. It made many observations and points that a casual observer might toss aside. This story, it seems to me, was written more to capitalize on the name that TWM made for itself. It seems to be written more with profit on the mind than storytelling, and does not include many thoughts that anything more than common sense.

I am not worried about this book affecting the society as aversely as Brooks mentioned (see my other post) because I think that it mostly powerless to elicit that strong of an emotion. I still think that it is a problem, maybe not as dangerous face-bashing, spittle-emitting fundamentalism, in books such as Life of Pi.

On the Freedom Scale: Don't bother, but don't listen to me. See for yourself!

First. I was wondering how posts are going to work. I was under the impression that we were going to create a single post per book, and then add comments to it, but that does not seem to be the way that it is working. Karthik, do you want to take this one?

Interesting choice for the first book. This blog's first post says: "You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.", ones of Ray Bradbury's finest. The topic the destruction of our culture is said to be very near and dear to this book. David Brooks, in a NY Times editorial, said, comparing the danger of this book to the danger of Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ, that, "... while religious dogmatism is always a danger, it is less of a problem for us today than the soft-core spirituality that is its opposite. ... We've got more to fear from the easygoing narcissism that is so much part of the atmosphere nobody even thinks to protest or get angry about it." In other words, the underlying religious tones of this book pose a greater threat to our secular society than blash-you-in-the-face religion because we do not realize this underneath-the-surface religious rhetoric as such. This forum has more on the topic, if you are interested.

I will attempt to get this here book read by August 1. Both of Mitch's, as far as I can tell, are about death. I thought "Tuesday's with Morrie" was decent because it more talked about the afterlife as a contribution to the ethos. I think that I will disappointed if this book is more about faith as a vehicle for self-support.

Peace.

Hi everyone!

Great idea, Karthik! Perhaps we can devise some sort of rotation such that each person gets to select a book for the group to read, thus exposing us to all types of literature. Maybe (and I know by suggesting this, I am diminishing my ability to participate), we can also reduce the time period for completing each book. The time given could also vary given the length of each work. What's our deadline for the current book?

at 2:01 am on 6/14/05, Anders wrote:

How about August 1 as a deadline for book one?

Here's your post to check my settings, KRam.
-Anders Berliner