Apocalypse in Cormac McCarthy's The Road

In Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic tale The Road a boy and a man walk alone through burned America. They don't have names; they could be anybody and nobody in the same time. The world as we know it is destroyed. The sky is gray, the snow is gray, the whole world has turned gray. McCarthy doesn't give an explanation for what had caused this devastation. We as the readers must accept the result - it has happened and it has destroyed what used to be America.

Among the few living soles are a man and his young son. They don't have anyone but each other. They travel through burned America with their destination the coast. They don't know what, if anything, awaits them there, but it gives them hope and strength to continue. The road ahead of them is dangerous. The only remaining people have turned into beasts. Humanity has been destroyed along with the world. Compassion, feeling, and sentiments have disappeared. Man has returned to his animal nature. People kill people. People eat people. People steal from other people in order to make it through the day.

In this post-apocalyptic world, it is difficult to feel sentiment. In fact, McCarthy's novel is the last thing but hopeful and sentimental. The details with which he describes the setting and the insanity are at times brutal and disturbing. And yet, the man shepherds his son with such gentleness and such love, which becomes even greater in the absence of food, shelter, and safeness. However difficult it must be for the man to understand how and why this is happening, it is million times much harder for a young and innocent boy to do so. The rare and short conversations between the two alleviate the rather depressing setting McCarthy has build. The man has abandoned his humanity when it comes to daily survival. He is prepared to kill, if he has to, but to provide himself and his boy with yet another day to live. However, he absolutely transforms when he talks to his son. The little boy is still taught to differentiate between the good guys and the bad guys and he still believes they carry the fire. This tender relationship between father and son is the only nice thing left in the world. And the man is set to keep both of them alive and in the same time keep his son a human.

Not much happens throughout the novel. The Road is much less about action and much more about feeling. When the world comes to its end, it becomes difficult to even remember the past. It seems rather remote in the dangerous day-to-day hunt for survival. Yet, the man keeps alive the memory of his wife, who chose death over battle. Giving birth to their son just days after the world collapsed, she couldn't face the battle and chose the easy way around. Daily, the man is faced with the absurdity and hopelessness of a destroyed world, but at night his dreams turn to happier times, which for him is difficult to imagine that ever existed. However, the future is scarier than reality. What if the world never recovers? What if it stays gray always? What if the hunt of survival never ends? What if whatever awaits them at the coast is not there?

Throughout this journey, the man and the boy are each other's pillar. The man provides for the body survival; the boy for the mind survival. The man would have given a million of times if it wasn't for the little creature which he was set to protect. In that sense, McCarthy's disturbing world is opposed to a small world of love, compassion, and sacrifice.

The Road offers no escape or comfort in the hope for the better future. However, its brutal wisdom about human nature faced with apocalypse is more powerful and infatuating than any reassurance can ever be.

Theology, Philosophy, and Physics explain the world we live in in The Black Book by Ivomir

Nobody ever sees anything. Nobody every hears anything. Nobody ever tastes anything. Nobody ever smells anything. The material world as we know it doesn't exist. Merely, it is a hologram created in our mind. Yes, you heard right. I am not touching or seeing my laptop while I am writing this. I am not seeing the words on the screen. I am merely in touch with the computer's energy field. You can shape the world any way you want it because this world exists only in your mind.

Basing his research on philosophy, theology, and physics, Ivomir carefully proves that all of our senses are biased. Quantum theory itself states that electrons have both wave-like and particle-like characteristics and they behave as particles only when we observe them. The common idea that we see the world because it exists turns to the world exists because we look at it. In fact electrical signals are sent to our eyes, nose, ears, fingers. These signals then interact with the mind to produce images, smells, sounds, and feelings. According to this theory, one is perfectly capable of controlling his world, because it only exists in his/her mind. As Salman Rushdie himself said it: "Memory has its own special kind. It selects, eliminates, alters, exaggerates, minimizes, glorifies, and vilifies also; but in the end it creates its own reality, its heterogenous but usually coherent version of events; and no same human being ever trusts someone else's version more than his own." In other words, I can't complain the world is like this; the world is like this because I myself created it in my mind.

One of the questions that has tormented human kind for centuries is where we came from. Stephen Hawking, the brilliant scientist and Cambridge professor gives a plausible answer in A Brief History of Time, a book I highly recommend. Similarly, Ivomir draws on physics and religion to explain our existence. The author places cogitality at the center of the world (rather than logic). According to the laws of physics (and most specifically quantum physics) even in vacuum there must be something. Ivomir assumes that at the beginning the vacuum was filled with still cognitive (thinking) particles. Since they were not in motion, time for them was moving with infinite speed and they possessed all the knowledge in the world. Hence, they didn't feel any emotion. Intuitively, since these cognitive particles hadn't felt emotion, they didn't know everything. So they moved. And what is the primary reason to move - to accomplish something. Through this movement energy was released and BOOM (or in other words The Big Bang).

I have got to say, even though it took me a lot of time to grasp the theory, I actually really liked it. My logical mind (which even now refuses the accept that the material world doesn't exist) was extremely satisfied with this explanation. Until God came along. Hawking also incorporates religion and God in his theory but to a rather minimal and acceptable level. Ivomir goes way too far. He draws on physics and philosophy to explain the beginning of the world but at times he gives examples from the Bible. To be honest, I am not sure how the fact that God himself said let there be light proves that we came from cognitive particles that started moving. I was rather annoyed at that point, which in fact ruined my opinion for the rest of the book.

Going back to the idea that the material world doesn't exist, Ivomir comes to the conclusion that our physical body doesn't exist either and that we can change it anyway we want. Philosophically, I embraced that idea and I prepared myself for something very good to come. Indeed it did. Fortunetellers. People who don't eat for more than 30 years and don't die. Psychics who help solve crimes or see that your heart is bad. Moreover, psychics who tell you to be gentle to your heart and tell IT nice stories so that it feels better. People that see other people's aura (i.e the energy field) and are able to predict their future. Don't get me wrong. I am one for positive thinking and I am one that believes that stress is the cause for all illnesses. However, 1)believing that by talking positively to my heart I am going to cure it and 2) believing in psychics, fortunetellers, etc is simply something I don't do. I would be a perfect victim for Ivomir, who challenges us to let go of the logic, that in his opinion, only obstructs us from seeing the world. However, basing one's theory on such stories merely ruins the good impression from the extensive philosophical and scientific research.

If you manage to disregard God and the psychics (who occupy one good 50% of the novel) you can get some valuable ideas from it. Mostly I was impressed by the theory of negative and positive feelings. When we feel said, depressed, or pessimistic, our brain cells create a very strong connection to these negative thoughts. The more we thing that way, the stronger these links become. Think about it as a habit. It becomes much easier to go to the gym if you have been doing it for a couple of months, than if you started yesterday. In the same way, negative feelings tend to stick and more and more energy is required to break these links and turn them to positive thoughts. In fact, the more we train that, the weaker the negative links will be and the stronger the positive. A rather simple explanation for depression and how easily one falls in the trap of pessimistic thinking.

At some point, Ivomir resembles Jorge Bucay and Andy Andrews, especially when he starts giving advice on how to be happy, nice, and thankful for the little things. By now you should know my great hatred towards the shallow so called self-help books so I was rather annoyed when Ivomir began giving to-do lists on how to change your life for good.

Overall, The Black Book started very promising. Impressive theories, backed up by extensive research, paradoxes explained and proven, and plausible explanations about how and why we came to life. However, the frequent use of God's words, the implausible stories about psychics, fortunetellers, aura-feelers, or crazy people who don't eat or drink for 30 years and are still alive, made Ivomir look more like a fraud rather than like an inspirational writer, who is here to free us from all our logical biases.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is what I might have looked like if I was a book. It encompasses fully the storm of thoughts about live, existence, love, and purpose that constantly leaves me sleepless during the night. While reading, I felt that these were the thoughts I was trying to convene to people but I was never able to formulate properly. The Unbearable Lightness of Being was more than words for me; it was a feeling of belonging to something; a feeling that finally I understand why, how, and what. I read it twice - first on a Caribbean cruise, where I felt I wasn't in a philosophical mood to appreciate it. Second time, I bore the benefits of re-reading a novel and I reassessed my own beliefs, feelings, and attitude.

It took 4 chance happenings for The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera to come into my hands. I happened to have to do numerical tests for a job interview. I happened to go to my friend's house so that she can help me out. I happened not to have any book to read at the moment and she randomly gave me Kundera's novel. She happened not to be able to finish it as it was too philosophical for her so I took that as a challenge.

It took 6 chance happenings for Tereza to come into Tomas's life and to stay there indefinitely.Tomas is a surgeon living in Prague just before the famous Spring Uprising of 1968. An incorrigible womanizer, he cannot resist his infatuation with sexual flings. Kundera explains:

What is unique about the "I" hides itself exactly in what is unimaginable about a person. All we are able to imagine is what makes everyone like everyone else, what people have in common. The individual "I" is what differs from the common stock, that is, what cannot be guessed at or calculated, what must be unveiled, uncovered, conquered.

In that sense, he is infatuated with the unique in a woman and his conquest satisfy his search for that one thing that differentiates one from another. Until Tereza is brought to him by chance. She appears on his door with her luggage after they have only met once. Particularly important about Tereza is her desire to separate her soul from her body. During her childhood her mother constantly embarrassed her trying to show that Tereza's body was like anyone else's and she shouldn't be ashamed of it. Tereza, on the other hand, has been trying to identify through her soul; she was looking at her body trying to prove there is something more to it; that Tereza would still be Tereza even her body is completely different.

In Tereza's eyes, books were the emblems of a secret brotherhood. For she had but a single weapon against the world of crudity surrounding her: the books she took out of the municipal library, and above all, the novels. She had read any number of them from Fielding to Thomas Mann. They not only offered the possibility of an imaginary escape from a life she found unsatisfying; they also had a meaning for her as physical objects. She loved to walk down the street with a book under her arm. It had the same significance for her as an elegant cane for the dandy a century ago. It differentiated her from others.

At that particular moment I stopped to breath. I felt someone was speaking through my voice and reciprocating my thoughts on the white paper in front of me. I have been thinking about my infatuation with books but I never could actually formulate it. Tereza quite actually resembles me. Realizing she is weak, she leans on Tomas, who is the only one to whom she can finally unveil her soul and separate it from her body.

"Pick me up" - is the message of a person who keeps falling.

"Pick me up" is what Tereza keeps telling Tomas. And he always does. He holds her hands until they stop trembling from her latest nightmare. He moves from Prague to Zurich back to Prague and then to the countryside to make her happy. Despite his infidelities, Tomas loves and needs to protect Tereza. Most importantly, he feels a strong sense of compassion for her:

For there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.

The other women satisfy his urge for conquest; Tereza, on the other hand, has occupied his soul and heart and no other woman is admitted any more there.

The novel takes place during the famous Spring Uprising in Prague in 1968 and the subsequent Russian invasion. The situation under communist rule is unbearable - people have no right to speak, think, or act against the regime. Many of the intellectuals lose their job (including Tomas). The artists are forbidden to express anything beside the crude, real image of Communism. Amongst them is Sabina, one of Tomas's closest lovers. She is an artist fascinated with aspects of incomparable images in which the interface of the images betray one another. In her own life she is the eternal betrayer, not unlike the tensions in her own paintings. She has betrayed her parents, her home, her relationship with Tomas and her subsequent lover Franz. For her betrayal is a search for boundaries. She keeps betraying everyone and everything hoping to reach a time and place, which she wouldn't want to betray.

Franz is the idealist of the story. Before meeting Sabina he lives a lonely and sad life as a prominent professor trapped in an unhappy marriage. His soul longs for marches, for uprisings, for change. He sees the world as a Grand March towards progress, towards a better and brighter future. Kundera mocks this illusion, as there is no basis for it and as history has numerously disproved it. People no longer believe in the grand march as they realize the meaningless of human action. Franz, who always longed for adventures, finds a rather trivial death.

One of Kundera's central themes is the being that has weight. We have been raised to believe that lightness is positive and weight negative. However, burden is what gives the being value. Only necessity is heavy and only what is heavy has value. In that sense, the greatness of man comes from the fact that he bears his fate in a much similar way Atlas bore the world on his hand. I was greatly attracted to that idea. Throughout my life I have rejected lightness and I have welcomed burden. Burden (and weight) makes me feel alive, as if I am battling some inner demons and only through defeating them would I really have value.

From this idea stems the concept of recurrence:

Human life occurs only once and the reason we cannot determine which of our decisions are good and which bad is that in a given situation we can make only one decision; we are not granted a second, third or fourth life in which to compare various decisions.

I spent enormous time going over my past decisions and wondering what would have happened if I made a different move. Kundera gave me a realistic view of the subject - man lives only one life. There is no recurrence and thus no way for us to test our decisions in a laboratory and see which one was right and which one - wrong. We get only one chance and we must bear the consequences. The notion of fate, or what Nietzsche refers to as "amor fati" (love of fate) is the notion that nature presents us with situations which we cannot escape and we simply have to bear them. Tomas must accept and bear his love for Tereza no matter how painful and hopeless.Yet, even this acceptance cannot escape the ultimate "unbearable lightness of being," the meaninglessness of all our acts in a world in which our acts simply don't live forever:

And therein lies the whole of man's plight. Human time does not turn in a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition.

Thus Kundera seems to accept Nietzsche's argument that only an eternal recurrence allows one to survive meaninglessness, but then the survival itself is impossible since the eternal recurrence does not and cannot happen.

My personally favorite (maybe because I greatly identify with it) was the concept of vertigo

We might call vertigo the intoxication of the weak. Aware of his weakness a man decides to give in rather than stand up to it. He is drunk with weakness, wishes to grow even weaker, wishes to fall down in the middle of the main square in front of everybody, wishes to be down, lower than down.

No, vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us, which tempts and lures us; it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified we defend ourselves.

I have felt this utter urge to fall, but I never found the words to describe it. It's a feeling born out of a moment without any particular cause. It, however, encompasses me fully, forcing me to test the boundaries of falling. I had fallen before but now I want to fall harder, deeper, better. This urge to do something that will eventually hurt only myself, this desire to experience pain and to be weaker than ever, has been haunting me without explanation. I have tried to fight it; now I am beginning to accept it. This intoxication is what I (and Kundera's characters) need to overcome the meaningless of our actions in a world where nothing recurs, where whatever happens is subject to fate and random occurrences, of which we make important (but often false) conclusions. Like a dog, we want repetition. Unlike a dog, we only get a straight line, which can take us anywhere. And there is no way we can determine whether this was right or wrong; moreover, our life will have been meaningless because repetition and recurrence give rise to meaning. And man is deprived of that.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a comedy and a tragedy; it is about understanding and accepting the fallacies of human life; it is about enduring the burden and pain and realizing we must accept that weight no matter how painful it might be. It is a philosophical masterpiece with striking ideas on the problem of existence, purpose, fate, life, and LOVE:

Perhaps all the questions asked of love, to measure, test, prove and save it, have the additional effect of cutting it short. Perhaps the reason we are unable to love is that we yearn to be loved, that is, we demand something (love) from our partner instead of delivering ourselves up to him demand-free and asking for nothing but his company.

Shadows in Paradise - Erich Maria Remarque

Remarque is comparable to no one when it comes to the immigrant's soul. Being himself an immigrant from Germany and having been persecuted numerous times for his writings, he understands the immigrant's dilemma - a longing towards your country, whose people have turned into murderers, and a clear understanding that in order to live you have to flee this country.

Shadows in Paradise follows the life of several German immigrants in the US, who are trying to balance between the American dream and the German nightmare. They are Jews and Germans; they have been persecuted or they voluntarily left Germany; they love and hate their own country; they dream of coming back and they use every resource to blend in the US. They are Americans (or trying to become) and yet they are still Germans. They are in the US and in the same time their past haunts them and obstructs any chance of starting a normal life.

Among these shadows arrives Ros, a German who escaped the persecutions and travelled all around Europe to find a shelter in the US. His real name is unknown or long forgotten. In fact, names are among the few things that escape time, war, and the Nazis. They are like a legacy, a saving will making death look like a rescue - for the dead and for the living.

Upon arrival Ros attempts to blend into the American life. He finds a job as a consultant to a seller of paintings, he finds a home in a shady hotel, he meets old friends from Europe, and of course, he tragically falls in love. It seems that everything is in place to live like in a paradise in the US - a country that participates in the war but doesn't feel it in any way. Trading is flourishing and morals are inexistent, making it a perfect atmosphere to exploit, lie, deceit, and make money. Somewhere far away people are dying but in Hollywood the Americans are making a movie about Nazi Germany. Ros, being among the few who has been in a concentration camp, becomes a consultant. He is shocked by the difference between image and reality. American movies back then were not very much different than what they are now. They portrayed the bad guys as ultimately bad with no soul or compassion and the good guys as beautiful and perfect saints.

A traitor, a spy, and a victim, Ros tries to live normally but is constantly haunted by memories from the past. The persecutions, the hidings, the fear, and the deaths have left an eternal mark on his personality, one that cannot be erased by the normality the US offers. As the war approaches its end, similar feelings evoke in the other immigrants. The immigrant dilemma becomes unbearable. On one side lies the perfect American life with its security and endless possibilites. On the other hand, many of them feel like shadows of living beings - their history and life has been and will be Germany. Even the Jews feel nostalgic. Yet, going back to the old Germany is impossible. It is still a country dominated by Nazism, it is largely destroyed, and the immigrants are mostly seen as traitors. More importantly, however, these pour souls feel that they will come back but to nothing. And yet staying is impossible because the feeling they have something missing will stay forever.

Love. Despite the difficult to bear topic of war, Remarque always finds a place and a time for love. In the face of Natasha, a Russian immigrant from France, Ros finds the shelter his soul needs. Yet, when you are incomplete and when you are a shadow of a human being, even love is not able to complete you. In Remarque's style, it is philosophical, passionate, and controversial. Natasha and Ros attempt to build something on top of ruins that haven't been completely destroyed yet. The result (as many of us have felt it I am sure) is a fleeting feeling that both sides understand needs to end.

Overall, no surprises from Remarque, which, however, doesn't mean that the author doesn't live up to his standards. The more I read, the more I understand and love Remarque's world of war and destruction. I will not exaggerate if I say, one of the greatest authors to ever live and write.

Further by Remarque: Three Comrades, The Night in Lisbon, The Black Obelisk, A Time to Love and a Time to Die

iLove Jobs

Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones that do.
Steve Jobs

Usually I am against quotes that are so overused that even hearing them makes my stomach turn upside down. However, Steve Jobs' famous quote is not only inspirational for many people; it is a sentence, which summarizes in 19 words the amazing, controversial, turbulent, and eventful life of one of the most important people of the 20th (and 21st so far) century. And I am not exaggerating even a bit.

The madness around Jobs' biography by Walter Isaacson stroke Bulgaria around Christmas. I wouldn't lie if say that each and everyone of my acquaintances bought this book as a gift to someone. Our family, being traditional (and rather unoriginal) followed this trend and gave the biography to my grandparents. Months later, as I come back home, I saw it standing in our own library. Whether or not (NOT) anyone read it, I am not to judge. But after the hustle and the obsession was gone, I felt it was time for me to read this "so-good" book.

I was skeptical, to be honest. I expected a sugar-coated over-exaggerated and unrealistic image of Steve Jobs, where he was more or less a saint. Instead, I was presented with what I thought to be a rather objective, comprehensive, and thorough image of Jobs, with his flaws and qualities, with his mistakes and successes, with his arrogance and gentleness, with his absurdity and logic. I must say I like Jobs even more now, because Isaacson gives a portrait of a human being - so controversial, so rude and harsh, so insensitive and brutal at times, but a human genius.

Abandoned and chosen. That's how little Steve's life starts when his Catholic mother is forced to give him for adoption. Getting pregnant from a Syrian muslim and living in a conservative society rules out abortion. The only condition Jobs' mum had was that he is to be adopted by people with a degree. Unfortunately, her wish is not fulfilled and Jobs' parents are regular working people from the Sicilian valley. His father, a mechanic, gaves Jobs his first lessons in the importance of perfection and completeness, a lesson Steve is going to remember all life and apply to all of the products of Apple. Being adopted is a complex of Jobs throughout all of his life; ironically he also abandons his first child and for years refuses to take responsibility as a father.

Growing up in the peak of the Sexual revolution, Jobs is hardly a saint. For years he takes LCD, claiming that the drug helped him open his senses to a lot of possibilities and unleashing his imagination. He lives in a closed community based on the idea "sharing is caring" (in every sense of the world), he is a huge fan of Dylan and the Beatles, he gets crazy about Buddhism and even visits India in search of spirituality, he rejects conformism and control; he is a hippie and a rebel in every sense of the word. At about this time, Jobs also becomes a strict vegetarian, a mania that is going to follow him all his life. In fact, he was so obsessed that he showered only once a week, claiming that if one doesn't eat meat, one doesn't smell. The result was a dirty and smelly hippie, who people found it hard to trust until of course he spoke and his passion won them over.

Among the drugs, the sex, the music, and the spirituality, Jobs is fascinated by the advancement of technology. Born in the Sicilian valley, the center of technological companies, he witnesses the birth of HP, Microsoft, Dell, etc. and is excited about the possibilities these developments could offer. You all know the story of how Apple was found in his father's garage. Well, it's true. Along with his best friend, also Steve, Jobs puts the beginning of what is to become one of the most successful companies in the world. You've also heard criticisms that he wasn't the one who invented the first computer. Well, that's also true. However, without Jobs' business mind, without his ability to sell things at high profit margines, without his persistance, arrogance, and brutality, this computer would be still standing in a small garage and I would never expect my dad to give me an iPad for my birthday in 15 days.

The biography follows the agony and the ecstasy of the controversial Jobs. His first years in Apple, his release, the foundation of NeXT and Pixar, everything that Steve touches is predestined to become a great company. So what does Jobs have that many of his opponents don't? I would say passion and perfection. Throughout his career he was always passionate for the products he was making and he strongly believed that these products are going to change the world and the way we perceive it. Interestingly, he hated marketing studies. One of his famous thoughts goes something like: "Why would we ask the customers what they want? They don't know what they want. They will know they want it when we give it to them." A rather controversial approach to the theory of marketing, but if you think about it, we never knew we wanted an iPod, an iPad, or an iPhone before Jobs showed us we wanted it.

Nevertheless, he was an arrogant bastard. He constantly rejected people's ideas before they even got the chance to justify them. If they were good, later he would claim them as his own. His employees lived in Jobs'distorted reality where "impossible" was not acceptable. Even though Steve was brutal and insensitive, he managed to ignite people with his passion, to motivate them to do what seemed impossible at first sight, and to get them on board to make "the best products". And even though his means were rather harsh, he mostly succeeded. I am one who believes that the means justify the end. And indeed, all of the people that worked beneath him admitted that even though at the times it was stressful and impossible to work with him, whenever a product was finished, they all felt a part of something great. Another one of Jobs's strengths.

If you own any of Apple's products, you must have noticed that they Xtimes better looking (and better working!) than most of the others. Throughout his career, Jobs was obsessed with perfection, a quality he inherited from his father. Even the bolts inside the computer, which no consumer would ever see, needed to be perfect. He spent hours and days choosing among colors, configurations, and models to make sure he took the best decision. Jobs was such a perfectionist that for years he didn't furnish his home. He simply couldn't find anything he liked. From the products to the shops, everything Steve touched needed to be perfect.

On top of that perfection, he was the first one to combine hardware and software. One of Apple's strengths, undoubtedly, is that all of the departments worked together to produce the products. In contrast, most other companies had separated their functions, which didn't communicate effectively between each other. Jobs, on the other hand, insisted that designers, engineers, and marketers work closely together. In fact, however, sometimes the designers had the final word, since for Jobs the outlook of the product was certainly very important. Then, engineers had to invent the technology, which sometimes was much more expensive. Nevertheless, Jobs believed this was the right way to go. And he certainly was right.

Yes, he was a human being and he had his flaws. He abandoned his first daughter, he didn't spend enough time with his family, he treated badly his employees, and he was always right. However, to be a genius and to leave a mark after you're gone, you have to be all of this. You have to be even more. Jobs was abandoned and chosen, criticized and praised, hated and loved, but everyone agrees he is one of the greatest business minds of our century. And his legacy will be remembered. He changed the world, something he was crazy enough to do.

Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children - India's different (real) face

My first (and only until now) encounter with the magic of magical realism was Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude. I was much younger (and naive) back then and I quickly deemed the book "unreadable" and left it alone in the list of "Books I just couldn't finish no matter how hard I tried". Ever since then I agreed with myself that magical realism was not a bite for my mouth.

Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children stayed on my bookshelf for almost a month after I picked it up for a friend and promised vigorously to read it and give my opinion. However, its time didn't come until my friend called me and said she would be leaving and thus needs the book in 3 days. 3 days to read a 650 pages book when you have exams and interviews is not an easy task but I somehow felt I must read it before I return it. So i committed myself to sleepless nights, reading exactly 220 pages per day. And trust me, one page of Midnight's Children is not as easily read as one page of The Hunger Games, for example.

The book is set in India encompassing the years before its independence from the British Empire until its partition into India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. In these turbulent times, Saleem Sinai is born and raised. To be exact, he is born on midnight the same day that India wins its long-awaited independence. To make this day even more rememberable, the Indian government announces that the children born on that day will be special and strongly connected to Indian history. However, Saleem along with 1,000 other midnight's children are more special and dangerous than India intended or wanted them to be.

Even though the title is Midnight's Children, the novel rather focuses on the life of one of them, Saleem, who was the first child of the new independent state. Despite that, Saleem is hardly a lucky child. As a midnight child, he has special telepathic powers, who enable him to connect to the other special kids. In addition, he possesses an extraordinary smell, able to detect feelings of hatred, love, fear, and despair. Through his telepathic communication with the rest of the special children, Saleem discovers a variety of skills, which if put to the right purpose can be beneficial for his country. Thus, Saleem starts to believe that he was born for a purpose, and this purpose is to unite the midnight's children and to become a sort of an army for the sake of India. Unfortunately, he altruistic (and rather naive) plans are set to failure as most of his peers are unwilling or unable to grasp his idea. Saleem, on the other hand, is faced with the daily problems of his drunk father, his mother in-love with another man, his mischievous sister, and his own issues of growing up and falling in love. Moreover, his unique gift is more often a curse, rather than a blessing. Despite that he never fully abandons the idea that his birth must somehow be connected and important to the future of India.

And indeed it is. The ups and downs, the successes and failures of the huge continent are mirrored in Saleem's life. Reversely, some of his actions have visible and changing effects on India. Thus, one of the midnight's children involuntarily fulfilled the government's prophecy - his life was to be inevitably connected to the life of his country. Midnight's Children is not merely a novel about a bunch of kids with special powers. Along with the life story of Saleem, Salman Rushdie manages to provide a thorough and understandable picture of India's complicated and turbulent history. Apologies to my Indian friends, but before that book I was completely ignorant about that part of the world and the wars and clashes that shaped its contemporary outlook. However, while reading Rushdie's epic, I constantly found myself searching through Wikipedia to make sense of the historical mess, to research names of leaders and battles, and to distinguish between fiction and reality. In fact, Rushdie produces a literary masterpiece which both grasps the main aspects of Indian history and provides a comprehensible picture of this distant continent with its culture, beliefs, and morals. Rushdie's magical realism is so uniquely presented that I, as a reader, almost believed the connections between Saleem and India. Rushdie carefully balances between reality and fiction, between the everyday and the magical, between the boy and the country and the result is a masterpiece, which tells you a different story about India, a story you are more likely to believe and understand than any other historical narrative.

What makes the novel difficult to read is the language and the amount of details. Rushdie is not an easy read, even for me (as I am used to reading in English for a couple of years now). In addition, the author indeed did his research job and sometimes history becomes too overwhelming and burdensome to bear. It takes time (which unfortunately I didn't have) to fully grasp the magician Rushdie and his extraordinary talent. I will be rereading this, for sure.

Salman Rushdie's novel was well appraised by readers, having won the Booker Prize and the Best of the Booker prize but also much criticized, especially from political leaders. One of them, the famous Indira Gandhi actually sued Rushdie for one sentence, which depicted her as guilty for her husband's death. The political leader won and the sentence was removed. However, I believe Rushdie is not an author easily sanctioned or criticized. His other novels (which I will definitely be looking to read) are banned in some Asian countries. However, when you are willing to tell the truth, you must be prepared that others might not be prepared to hear it.

Mockingjay - the final book of the amazing trilogy The Hunger Games

Revolutions are usually initiated to improve the quality of life of people. Otherwise, how would you motivate them to abandon their secure but unhappy and deprived life and to fight for some long-awaited ideal. Unfortunately, revolutions rarely change the world for the bette, or lets say, rarely bring the benefits that people expected them to. The communist rule in Russia came to free the Russian people from the tyranny of the Tsar and from constant hunger and oppression. Instead, it brought the tyranny of Stalin and his tyranny and oppression. Capitalism substitute communism in Bulgaria more than 20 years ago but instead of making people better off, it just increased the gap between the rich and the poor, clearly distinguishing the equal from the more equal, opened the door to mafia, prostitution, crime, and corruption, and made Bulgaria the poorest country in the EU. Yes, revolutions have this amazing threat - they are good as an idea but somehow in practice they almost always fail.

Katniss Everdeen is the mockingjay face of the revolution in Panem. The Capitol artificially created a mutant jay to spy on people unhappy with the regime and report back. Unfortunately, the joke turned against them when the jay mated with the mockingbird to create a mockingjay, a bird that sings amazingly and is able to repeat any sound it hears. Katniss bears a lot of similarities with the mockingjay, the symbol of her famous rebellion against the Hunger Games in the first book and subsequently the symbol of the whole rebellion. She also has been created to serve and obey the Capitol. However, through various encounters and life changing events, Katniss has mutated to a rebel opposing the regime and its restrictions and a fighter willing to do anything to protect her family. Her unintentional opposition at the end of the first games to save Peeta and herself became the first tone of the mockingjay song, a song that Katniss is to spread to the population and drive them to fight.

At the end of the second book, Catching Fire, Katniss successfully survives yet another hunger games edition and is amazed to understand that her survival has been the sole mission for some of the participants. In a shaky health state, she is taken to the famous District 13 to be trained as the face of the uprising. Nothing, however, seems so different in District 13 than in the Capitol. People are similarly controlled, forced to wear the same clothes, to eat calories that exactly match their daily needs, and to participate in various activities. Freedom is no more obvious here than it was in Panem. Katniss feels like a prisoner once again, trapped between her feeling of guilt for all the people that lost their lives because of her and her assumed duty to be the leader of the rebellion. On top of that, Peeta is caught by president Snow and his mind is carefully manipulated to hate and kill Katniss.

President Alma Coin is the District 13 equivalent of President Snow. Brutal, unscrupulous, and manipulative, she wants to use Katniss in a much similar way that President Snow used her before. Katniss is to undergo the same beauty procedures as she did before the Hunger Games in order to look like a proper rebellion leader. Her personality and physical appearance again have to be changed to fit a certain propaganda and the posters and videos prepared to be distributed to the rest of the districts strikingly remind of the media propaganda used by the Capitol. Katniss is soon to realize that District 13 is not going to bring anything different to the people of Panem and that its leaders are much or less using and oppressing the population in a similar way to reach their own personal goals. The dilemma in front of Katniss is whether to stay and avoid the deaths of hundreds of other people or fight the Capitol and attempt to get back the real Peeta.

Yes, the real Peeta. The thing I really disliked about the third book was the new Peeta personality. I have been used to the nice, romantic and brave boy willing to do anything to protect and guard Katniss. Instead, President Snow has transformed him into a bitter, suspicious, and vindictive mutant. His old love and admiration for Katniss are fighting to overcome his implied belief that she is set to kill him. The absence of Peeta's calmness, stability, and reassurance certainly affect Katniss and her ability to make the right decisions and to fight her battles.

Of course I will not tell you the end. I will just say that Mockingjay is the darkest, the bloodiest, the most depressing of the three novels. The whole trilogy follows the birth of a dream (The Hunger Games), the development of its means (Catching Fire) and the disappointing outcome (Mockingjay). In the last novel Katniss is to face her biggest fear, to experience her biggest pains, and to learn to live with the responsibility of initiating the rebellion and its outcome. Despite some criticisms I have read for the last book, I am convinced Suzanne Collins did an amazing job in closing a trilogy that will be long remembered and will stay in the anali of world literature as a prominent example of a dystopian young adult book. In addition, The Hunger Games trilogy will remain one of the most enjoyable experiences I have head as a reader, making me stay all night to finish reading.

Catching Fire - a single spark that sets the whole country on fire

The second book of the trilogy picks up where the first one left us off - Katniss and Peeta have managed to set a precedent in the 74 years history of the hunger games by becoming the first two winners. Through carefully manipulating the public with their tragic love story, they won on their side not only the citizens of the capital, but the whole country. The Capitol, in fear of a massive rebellion, had no other choice but to let both of them live.

It seems that everything can now go back to normal. Katniss and Peeta return to district 12 as heroes. They don't need to worry anymore how to feed their families as the privileges of winning the hunger games secure them a wealthy and affluent life. Peeta is still madly in love with Katniss, while she is torn between her best friend, who has always been there for her and the boy who saved her life in the games. Unfortunately, president Snow doesn't plan to leave her a choice. Katniss's actions during the hunger games have provoked massive uprisings in the other districts. People have long been angry with the regime but haven't had the courage and strength to oppose. Now, they have a leader in the face of Katniss and a symbol in the form of her mocking-jay broche. The 17th old girl that had the courage to stand against the rules of the Capitol unconsciously gave the districts strength and motivation. Many of them start doubting the reality of the love story and see Katniss's actions as the long awaited trigger against the Capitol. President Snow is furious; he sets an ultimatum to Katniss - she either has to prove to everyone that she acted out of love or everyone she loves will be hurt. On their annual tour as winners Katniss and Peeta are all over each other and even decide to marry. However, people already see them as symbols of the change. Many of the districts openly show their readiness for rebellion. The solution is only one - Katniss needs to die and she needs to do it in the hunger games.

Yes, the annual 75 hunger games offer a spectacle never seen before. The names of the contestant are to be chosen among all of the winners and very soon Katniss and Peeta are back on the arena. This time the gamemakers have worked hard to ensure that they will not come back alive. Instad of fighting against children like themselves, Katniss and Peeta are set in front of the most skilled and violent killers in the country. As usual, Katniss tries to save Peeta and vice versa. However, weird alliances on the arena seem to lead to the conclusion that everyone is trying to save actually both of them. It is brutal on the Arena, where Katniss is trying to understand and survive, but it is much more brutal outside, where people have released an anger hidden for 75 years.

Catching Fire continues with the amazing trend set by The Hunger Games. Much darker and much more violent, the second book is a turning point in the story. On a first glance, the first two parts are mirror-like. Katniss and Peeta are back in the games, but this time the purpose is not to kill the others and stay alive but to escape. Just like a fire needs a single match to spread, the districts need a single spark in the face of Katniss, to rise against the Capitol. I read the second part in exactly 1 day. Collins is still infatuating and obsessive; her talent creates multi-faced characters, who are neither all good or all bad. The author portrays a realistic and obsessive tale of a controlled regime and the rebellions of the masses, who are like a giant snowball on the verge of a mountain - they need a small push to destroy everything on their way. That is why Katniss needs to surve - to stand as an example of a successful rebellion against the Capitol and to push the people towards change. The girl, herself, is not sure whether she wants to be a symbol for that, but is sure for one thing - she wouldn't be if Peeta dies.

The Hunger Games is much more than a young adult novel. It is about courage and strength in the face of an enemy too strong to be defeated. It is about inner conflicts to do the right thing or to save yourself and your family. It is about sacrifice for someone else and for a whole idea. Even though it is fantastical, the trilogy is closer to contemporary society than we can possibly imagine.

The most dangerous game in The Hunger Games

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Hunger Games have begun. There is only one rule - no rules. Strikingly similar to a gladiator arena, Suzanne Collins takes us to an arena in a futuristic America, where 24 children are turned into beasts and forced to kill each other. Only one can survive.

The USA as we know it is destroyed. The Capitol, the powerful capital of the newly created country Panem controls the other 12 districts through deprivation, obedience and fear. The 13th district has been eliminated, when it rebelled against the controlled society. For remembrance and punishment, the Capitol has introduced a new form of entertainment - the Hunger Games. Each year a lottery chooses a boy and a girl between the age of 12 and 18 from each of the districts, who are thrown into an arena carefully controlled and managed by the game makers. Natural disasters, traps, and occasional gifts are thrown in order to turn the competitors against each other and to provide a bloody massacre for the viewers. This year, however, the organizers haven't taken in mind one factor - Katniss Everdeen.

Katniss has the unfortunate luck of living in the poorest of the districts - 12. No one from the district had won the Hunger Games in 30 years and the region is deprived from the awards associated with them. After her father's death in the mines she starts taking care of her mentally disabled mother and younger sister Prim. In order to feed her family in the most starving region of the Panem, Katniss daily breaks many rules - she escapes through the electric fence guarding the district, she hunts for wild animals, and she sells them on the black market. Together with her best friend Gale they have mastered the art of survival, while secretly dreaming of escaping. Katniss has this opportunity earlier than she imagined. On this year's Hunger Games her sister is chosen as a tribute, or a contestant. Without thinking, Katniss takes her place towards a sure death. The other tribute is Peeta, the quiet son of the baker, who has secret powers and a secret affection for Katniss.

The games have begun. The contestants are in the arena, thirsty for victory and blood. As usual, the trained tributes from the wealthiest regions have the edge, while Katniss is fighting hunger, thirst, and loneliness. Her training in the woods with Gale, however, has prepared her and she throws into the game with the greatest desire not to win but to stay alive - because this is what she has promised her little sister. The Hunger Games drive out the most animalistic features in these children, who in their acts resemble more wild animals set free than human beings with heart and soul. However, the Capitol hasn't taken into consideration that Katniss, Peeta, and several others actually feel. Katniss forms an unusual bond with a 12-year old girl from another district and desperately tries to protect her. Later, her life is saved by a contestant from the same region grateful for her help. But most importantly, Peeta is set to ensure that Katniss will survive.

"I just keep wishing I could think of a way to show them that they don't own me. If I'm gonna die, I wanna still be me." That is what Peeta wishes before the games have begun. However, this is exactly what the Capitol is trying to do - show people that they are owned, controlled, and can die just for the pleasure of the strongest. Violent death for some is a nice pleasure for others. In The Hunger Games Collins portrays a futuristic society that scarily reminds us of our own (without mentioning any names I would just like to point out that several months ago certain people were celebrating the death of another human being). Her talent to describe a dystopian future world is comparable to Orwell, Huxley, and Bradbury. The book is dark, violent, and consuming. Maybe because it is about children or maybe because it actually places people directly against each other, The Hunger Games had a greater impression on me than 1984 and A Brave New World. I kept asking my self what would I do if I was turned against 23 human beings with the highest stake - my life. It is immensely difficult to remain a human in this situation. It is almost impossible to feel compassion for someone, when you know you have to kill him to survive. Yet, Katniss and Peeta have something the Capitol hasn't expected - a great desire to stay alive TOGETHER. This might cost them their life but if they succeed it might cost the Capitol even more - its power.

I can't even begin to explain how obsessive, infatuating, and consuming this novel is. I don't have the time. My hands are trembling to get hold of the next book. For a trilogy named a bestseller from almost every newspaper, the first book The Hunger Games sets the stake very high. Given Collins's amazing imagination and great skills of a storyteller, I really doubt the following two will be worse.

Love

Before writing a review about a book I spend a lot of time actually thinking about the title of the post. I try to incorporate the name of the novel and the most distinguishing aspect of it for me. I have only one blog post with a one word title - Hunger. Now I have another - Love. I guess when the words are so important in my life, I don't need any further explanation.

Elif Shafak's Forty Rules of Love is a tale about love, in all its forms, that transforms people, opens their hearts, and sets them free both from society's and their own boundaries. Shafak unfolds two paralel stories, one set in contemporary time and the other in the 13th century. The author successfully escapes the cliches and the trivialities and by exploring the nature of sufism, shows that love is transcendental; that it goes beyond race, age, and sex; that it is the sincerest and strongest force; that it makes us better people; that it helps us lose ourselves and find ourselves; that allows us to die only to be reborn; that changes us; that shows us the path towards happiness. Love is the ultimate goal and ultimate truth.

Ela is a bored middle-aged housewife, who has given up her dreams in order to take care of her husband and her three children. Days before her 40th birthday Ela realizes not only that she is not happy but that she hasn't been happy for a long time. Her estranged and unfaithful husband doesn't give her the love she thought she didn't need. Her daily activities are trivial: cooking, meeting with housewives as herself, taking care of the children. For 40 years Ela never broke any rule, never crossed any line, and never lived. Until she meets Zahara.

In a slight effort to change her life, Ela takes a job as a literary critic. Her first assignment is a manuscript by an unknown author, Sweet Blasphemy. It tells the story of a 13th century wandering dervish Shams of Tabriz and his inspirational relationship with Rumi, the greatest poet of the Sufi canon. Most importantly, it shows how the love between Shams and Rumi helps transform the latter from a conservative literator of the Koran into one of the most praised mystics in the Islam and one of the most famous poets. Ela is so impressed by the novel that she contacts the author Aziz Zahara, never expecting that similarly to Rumi and Shams, this relationship is going to change her life.

Told through the view point of a range of characters, The Forty Rules of Love follows the development of two types of love, separated by more than seven centuries. Shams introduces to Rumi a new religion - the religion of love. His forty rules of love philosophy implies a gentle and non-judgmental reading of the Koran, which rejects religious fundamentalism and is accessible to all, drunkards, whores, intelligence. Through his love for Shams, Rumi denies his former way of living, his strong reliance on reputation and other people's opinion, and his conservative reading of the Koran. Instead, he turns to Sufism and writes Masnavi, a key Sufi tract which weaves Koranic analysis with poetry, parables of the everyday, the mythic and miraculous. This inspirational bond sets Rumi free from any conventions, opens his heart to spirituality and teaches him to accept people for who they are.

Similarly, Aziz appears to set Ela free. All of her life she believed she didn't need love. She looked down on the concept of eternal and passionate love and she despised romance. At least she thought so. Upon realizing there is a terrible void in her heart, one that needs to be filled exactly with love, she starts a passionate on-line affair with Aziz, an affair that is set to have life-changing consequences.

As much as I liked to avoid the religious part, I indeed have to touch upon it. Shams's philosophy focuses extensively on love for God and on the eternal search for God within yourself. I am not religious but I am willing to accept people that are. Without going too much into the subject, I would just say that the God part of the novel did indeed irritate me. I personally don't see the need of religion to prompt people to be virtuous, to love one another, and to accept other's faults by a simple fear of being punished or by a blind fate that they are serving some omnipotent creature. And for me religion in its essence is the cause of an infinite number of conflicts and confrontations, of unnecessarily strict rules, of the church's desire to control and guide people, and of endless hatred between people.

Otherwise, the novel is positive and inspirational. It has a great attention to detail. Every chapter starts with a "b" (even in the Bulgarian translation), as for Sufi mystics the secret of the Koran lies in the verse Al-Fatiha, the essence of which is contained in the word bismilahirahmanirahim (in the name of Allah, the Benevolent and Merciful), with the quintessence of the word in the dot below the first Arabic letter, a dot that embodies the universe. Moreover, Shafak offers a popular and understandable introduction to sufism as a religion towards spirituality and self-awareness. The author wrote the book for more than 15th years and the result is obvious. She is one of the most read female authors in Turkey, a direct competitor to Orhan Pamuk, and possibly a challenger to Paulo Coelho's dominance. The Forty Rules of Love indeed flaws easily and is perfect for people on a verge of their lives when they simply need encouragement, positivism, and hope. I am sad to say that at some points it greatly reminded me of Andy Andrews and Jorhe Bucay, which for me as a reader, is a great offense.Still, Shafak manages to go beyond the cliches and to offer an inspirational tale of love as the most important thing. If it makes readers better people, if it indeed teaches them that religious differences don't exist and should not be a reason for violent acts (something we are quite familiar in contemporary society) and if it actually influences them to love each other and themselves, I believe this novel's value will be even greater. It also reminded me of Eat, Pray, Love, where similarly a disillusioned woman goes on a search for spirituality and falls in love.

It seems that contemporary authors now more than ever attempt to imply that love is the answer to all of our questions, our ultimate goal, our only purpose. Andrews, Bocay, Gilbert, and now Shafak tell tales of despair and hopelessness, of lack of ambition and desire to live, which are all solved byt the power of that one person, who opens your heart and soul. As much as I would like to believe this positive view of life, I am skeptical. Reading about it is ok, but until it happens to me, I stand convinced that even the greatest love in the world is not enough for a fulfilled and happy life. Still a good thought, though. I will give it a try. After reading, I even started my own forty rules of love but I ended with only one: "Lora, don't be afraid."