I recently decided to get around to reading some of the classics I’ve just never gotten around to. Finished The Count of Monte Cristo yesterday and now getting started on Moby-Dick. I’m woefully under read for the great Russians. I read War and Peace 30-some years ago but other than that and some Chekhov short stories, I’ve got many to get to. And one of these days, I want to tackle Ulysses but it’s daunting and I might have to ease into Joyce with Dubliners. If memory serves, I’ve yet to read anything by Jane Austen.
“So many books. So little time.” — Frank Zappa
Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, AI, and Debt:
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Analysts flagged that geopolitical shocks no longer "hit crypto directly" thanks to institutional transmission via ETF flows.
Coronavirus and Public Health:
‘We’re not ready’: US lags on pandemic preparedness after Covid
Iran:
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U.S. Commander Dismisses Reports of Civilian Deaths
The senior U.S. officer overseeing combat operations in Iran told the Senate on Thursday that the military had identified only one potential incident in which Iranian civilians were mistakenly killed out of about 13,600 U.S. airstrikes, a statement that human rights groups and some lawmakers said was not remotely credible.
Politics:
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Xi Jinping Was Only Humoring Trump
In Beijing, a lame-duck president personified the decline of American power.
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———— Tina Peters ————
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———— The Epstein Coverup ————
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———— Cuba ————
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———— Autocracy R Us ————
Trump-Ordered Citizenship Lists for Voting Are Not Reliable
Citizenship lists that the Trump administration has ordered be compiled and shared with state election officials this year are likely to be incomplete and unreliable for determining voter eligibility, the Justice Department told a federal judge on Thursday.
The admission, in Federal District Court in Washington, came in a lawsuit challenging an executive order President Trump signed in March that would create state registries of citizens using federal data, and require the U.S. Postal Service to regulate mail-in voting.
———— Blatant In-Your-Face Corruption ————
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———— Putin&Krasnov vs. Ukraine ————
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———— Melon Husk ————
———— Mors Imperii ————
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Serendipity:
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Jane Austin is fun. You'll be able to skip right through those. I would recommend Dostoyevsky as your next challenge. I think he has more meat in him, if you are looking for philosophical discourse (oh, the Russians are good for that). Start with the Idiot and go to Crime and Punishment. I think it would be hard to find a more influential novel than Crime and Punishment. So many times I've read references to a complex character in the book, Raskolnikov.
If I were you, I would skip Ulysses, unless you just want bragging rights. That book is full of scholarly references. It's like a puzzle, the most challenging long Sunday Crossword puzzle that tests your knowledge of classical references. If you like that sort of stuff, go for it.
Anyway, that's my opinion. My favorite author of all time was always Dostoyevsky. I was disappointed later in my life to find some dreadful instances of anti-semitism. Be ready for that if you read the books. He was a creature of his time, I guess.
I hope you don't mind the long commentary. I spent a lot of time reading literature from all over the world (it's what I studied in graduate school). I do have strong opinions. You write a blog like this and you get my attention :)
Happy reading.
If I do at some point tackle Ulysses, I'd want to do so with one of the “guidebooks” for it — I’ve read that The Cambridge Ulysses is excellent. But realistically that might not happen, I’ve got so much else to read and the sand is pouring through my life’s hourglass.
By the way, I did read Crime and Punishment about 50 years ago but have only vague memories of it. Probably should read it again as it would be essentially new to me; I don’t even remember who Raskolnikov murdered.
😇
From what I remember, it's not so much who he killed as why he killed them. It became a whole philosophical discussion about crime and guilt.
I love Dostoyevsky. First read him when I was in high school, and I was stunned. Opened up a world for me. The Idiot was my first book. I didn't know people had those thoughts, that there could be such a way of looking at life. Of course now I see that Dostoyevsky was flawed, but he was profound. That's what I was looking for, I think, when I was young.
Anyway, here I go again :))