Tag: war and peace
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Finished reading WAR AND PEACE. Now I don’t believe in free will anymore
I remembered that War and Peace was a vigorous assault on the “Great Man” theory of history: the idea that Napoleon (and other such important historical figures) had, through his inherent genius, altered the course of history and directed the fate of nations. What I’d forgotten was that the last section of the book is also a…
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THE DOLL is the most engrossing novel that I’ve ever been so ambivalent about
Remember yesterday when I wrote about Boleslaw Prus’ THE DOLL? Well today I’m 25% of the way through! Yes, I made an absurd amount of progress with this 1000 page Polish realist novel, because it’s actually really readable. For the first few chapters, I was like, what am I reading? And then I realized it…
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If you’re gonna make a speech in your novel, you should just make a speech!
John Scalzi recently linked to his review of Atlas Shrugged, which made me think of my own post about the book (which is, incidentally, my favorite novel). And that made me remember my major criticism of the book, which is that the final third of the book is pretty superfluous. I don’t know if you’ve…
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The insanity of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables
My grandma doesn’t have wifi, but I thought that upon returning to New Delhi I would be reunited with my love. However, I soon discovered that the internet in my parents’ apartment is down. The four of us are reduced to using a 3g internet dongle to put cellphone internet into our computers. Truly a…