The November Reading List

When I first looked at the final reading list for the month of November, I thought that,compared with previous months, the list this month seemed a bit sparse. After looking over the lists posted for the past 10 months, it turns out that the nine books I read this month is actually fairly close to my monthly average. There were some months, while I was reading strictly Agatha Christie mystery novels, when the totals were rather high, but this was due to the her novels being relatively speedy reading.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had a bit of difficulty with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago and had to abandon it. I had managed to get into the habit of finishing every book I start, regardless of how much I dislike the book, but couldn't continue with Solzhenitsyn's book. It really was a drudge.

A few months back, I discovered a website which allowed me to download books that were more current than my usual fare from Project Gutenberg. Having finished To Rescue the Republic: Ulysses S. Grant, the Fragile Union, and the Crisis of 1876  by Bret Baier and Catherine Whitney, I downloaded a book written by another Fox News associate, Jesse Watters - How I Saved the World . I like seeing Watters on TV, but I wasn't really expecting much from his book. However, I was pleasantly surprised. It's a nice read.

From the list, one will find two by Dr. Jordan B. Peterson. The second - Beyond Order was a more difficult read for me than his earlier book.

The next three books on my list were recommended by Dr. Peterson.

I learned of Eric Metaxas from a Babylon Bee video. I found his Is Atheism Dead? uneven. His science seemed, to this non-scientist, logical but his claim that archeology proves that Christianity is true wasn't convincing.

I came upon Mustafa Akyol in a Youtube video with Dr. Peterson. His The Islamic Jesus does a great job at explaining the Muslim view of Jesus.

Of course, anyone who follows this blog knows my last post covered Kafka on the Shore.

So, now, here is the list of books I read in November 2021.

How I Saved the World   Jesse Watters
12 Rules for Life    Jordan B. Peterson
Orphan X   Gregg Hurwitz
The Rape Of Nanking   Iris Chang
Lord of the Flies   William Golding
Beyond Order   Jordan B. Peterson
Is Atheism Dead?   Eric Metaxas
The Islamic Jesus   Mustafa Akyol
Kafka on the Shore   Haruki Murakami

Kafka on the Shore

A few days ago, I made an unsuccessful attempt at reading Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago . This three volume memoir is highly recommended by Dr. Jordan Peterson, but unfortunately, I scarcely made it thru a quarter of the first volume. I recognize the importance of the work, but after so many tales of arrests and imprisonment during Stalin's reign in the Soviet Union, it becomes a bit tedious.

Putting away The Gulag Archipelago for another day, I began reading a novel I've been wanting to read for quite awhile - Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami.

Naturally, one would expect a novel with Kafka's name in the title to be more than a little unusual and that's certainly the case with Kafka on the Shore , although I would not use the word "Kafkaesque" in describing this book. If anything, I'd be more inclined to compare this work to Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita . Murakami's novel is more surreal and hallucinatory than anything Kafka may have written, with the possible exception of The Metamorphosis.

The story takes several bizarre twists and turns. In an interview posted on his English-language website, Murakami says that the secret to understanding the novel lies in reading it several times. That may well be the case.

The novel can, at times verge on the pornographic. The references to the music of Beethoven and Franz Schubert seems to me to be an attempt to draw one away from the novel's potent sexuality. I suppose the graphic descriptions of sex can be considered a very important element of the novel, but it all became too much after a bit.

Like in The Master and Margarita , cats play an integral part of the story. Murakami mentions the works of Natsume Sōseki who, it can be assumed, was an influence on Murakami's writing. It was my original intention to read Murakami's Norwegian Wood next, but I've decided to read Natsume Sōseki's I Am a Cat first. That book is more in keeping with the direction I seem to be led.

The Seven Faces of Joe Biden

 

In order to help lift Joe Biden's horrible poll numbers, the White House has approached the folks at Disney to use Biden in a remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

It's obvious that Joe can play all seven dwarfs in the new film, as can be seen in these photos.

Bashful

Doc

Dopey

Grumpy

Happy

Sleepy

Sneezy

A Fistful of Yojimbo

Yesterday afternoon, I saw a Clint Eastwood meme showing photos of how he looked at different ages. This meme brought to my mind one of Eastwood's earliest films from 1964 - A Fistful of Dollars . It's been maybe two years since I watched the film online and I thought I'd watch it again.

I located a copy at Daily Motion; I enjoyed watching it again, even though there are quite a few ad breaks.

During one of those commercial breaks, I opened the wikipedia page for the film where I learned that the film was an unofficial remake of the Akira Kurosawa film, Yojimbo . After a quick search, I located a copy of that film at archive.org. The film is widely regarded as one of the best films by Kurosawa and one of the greatest films ever made.

There is a link to it above, and I highly recommend it. I'd also suggest that anyone who hasn't watched the Eastwood film recently to watch it again before viewing the Japanese film. Of course, there are slight differences - due to the fact that one takes place in Japan during the 1860s, while the other is set in a small town on the Mexico–United States border. None the less, Sergio Leone kept much of the original story (after a fashion).

Like A Fistful of Dollars , Yojimbo spawned 2 sequels - Sanjuro and Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo . These two films are also located on the archive.org website. I'll be watching both soon.

I think it should be safe to say that the rest of the Yojimbo trilogy won't resemble the last two films in the Dollar trilogy.

Orphan X

In a recent post [A Few Thoughts on "12 Rules For Life". ] I wrote that in his book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, Dr. Jordan Peterson mentions a number of books which he believes might help explain some of his ideas. One such book was written by a friend and former student of his at Harvard, Gregg Hurwitz - Orphan X. In that thriller, Hurwitz has one of his characters post every day, in a conspicuous place around her condo, one of Dr. Peterson's "rules". As I mentioned in the earlier post, I downloaded a few of the books Dr. Peterson puts in his book, and uploaded the e-books to my Kindle. I've just finished reading Orphan X.

The book is, well, action packed to say the least. The main character freelances as an assassin. Hurwitz gives very detailed descriptions of every fight scene, every killing and the weapons used. Orphan X isn't my cup of vodka, as far as books are concerned. It would, however be an entertaining movie, provided the right actors were cast.

Every character in the book is "broken" - most rather badly. Of course, that's to be expected from a writer who studied psychology at Harvard. The character Evan Smoak (AKA Orphan X ) is especially broken. He seems to personify the philosophy of Raskolnikov (from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment ) but without Raskolnikov 's feelings of guilt and remorse. Orphan X seems to be his own judge as to who should live and who should die.

Orphan X is the first in a six-book series. I don't think I'll be reading the other five.

A Few Thoughts on "12 Rules For Life".

I can't recall exactly when I became aware of Dr. Jordan Peterson, though I'm reasonably sure it was via one of his Youtube videos. I was immediately impressed with his anti-Leftist views and his stance against the "politically correct" culture and identity politics that is taking over Western society.

I would later come to appreciate his Biblical lectures and his talks on ethics, psychology and personal responsibility. His thoughts on Christianity, Taoism, Buddhism and evolution were a big draw as well. From his Youtube lectures, I went on to listen to his podcasts, available on his website and on Spotify.

I had been wanting to read his book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos for a long time, but due to problems with my Amazon account, I was only recently able to download a copy.

I'm fast approaching 70, but I'm still a work in progress. I've learned quite a bit from his "12 rules" and if I had a time machine, I would take a copy of this remarkable book back to an earlier me. I'd be much better off today (provided, of course that I could convince the earlier me to read it).

Like myself, Dr. Peterson has a love for the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky and he references three of Dostoevsky's novels in this book - Crime and Punishment ,The Brothers Karamazov and Notes from Underground . In addition to Dostoevsky, Dr. Peterson mentions a number of novels to help explain his ideas - Lord of the Flies by William Golding, The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang, Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago . I've read the above mentioned novels by Dostoevsky, although the three could do for a re-read in 2022. I read Lord of the Flies as a teenager and it's due for a re-read as well. It's going into the queue, as are the books by Chang, Hurwitz and Solzhenitsyn.

The October Reading List

As I write this, it is still October 30 and a bit early to be posting a monthly book list. I've started writing the post any way; the only thing that might change between now and then is that I may or may not finish the book I'm reading now. Of course, this can all be edited before posting

When I last posted here I was reading a book by Arab Israeli author Sayed Kashua - Second Person Singular. That novel uses Tolstoy's novella, The Kreutzer Sonata as a major plot device and frankly, I was more impressed by Kashua's novel than Tolstoy's novella.

During the first week of October, I was finally able to finish reading all of Agatha Christies mystery novels. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I went from there to read Anthony Burgess' The Enderby Quartet which I was able to read because I had discovered a website which had books still under copyright available for free download......like a virtual public library. It was this website that enabled me to download a number of books by Arthur C. Clarke in addition to the above mentioned novel by Sayed Kashua.

Thanks to that website, I've been able to download quite a few relatively recent books. One of those newly published books was To Rescue the Republic: Ulysses S. Grant, the Fragile Union, and the Crisis of 1876 by Bret Baier and Catherine Whitney. This book on U.S. Grant brought me back to Project Gutenberg to download Grant's two volume memoir. There was a break between Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 of the memoirs, due to my being unable to transfer Vol. 2 to my Kindle from my P.C. while my P.C. was in the shop.

Postern of Fate                    Agatha Christie
Curtain - Poirot's last case  Agatha Christie
Sleeping Murder                Agatha Christie
Hercule Poirot And The Greenshore Folly
Inside Mr Enderby            Anthony Burgess
Enderby Outside               Anthony Burgess
The Clockwork Testament  Anthony Burgess
Enderbys Dark Lady           Anthony Burgess
Childhood's End                 Arthur C. Clarke
Rendezvous With Rama     Arthur C Clarke
2001: A Space Odyssey     Arthur C. Clarke
2010: Odyssey Two           Arthur C. Clarke
The Kreutzer Sonata          Leo Tolstoy
Second Person Singular     Sayed Kashua
To Rescue the Republic     Bret Baier
Personal Memoirs Vol. 1    U.S.Grant
Dubliners                           James Joyce
Personal Memoirs Vol. 2    U.S.Grant