When you see the title you start projecting things regarding the book… It’s not a bad thing to do, as the book tells the story of different generations, different times an yet they all are intertwined in a beautiful, whole narration, that makes you think more about your values.
Would you be able to save someone from slavery? Would you be able to save yourself? Could you pursue the truth with the cost of your life? Would you realize that your life is not perfect? Or would you have the courage to speak your mind? These are some of the question that arises from reading the book. Its characters are divided into stories that take place at different times in somewhat different locations.
One can feel a thread throughout the book. It’s the thread which puts the characters into relations to one another, and that thread seems to be the essence of humanity, the building block of moral values, the thing that sets apart good from evil. Finding the thread in your own life and thoughts is easy, because you are to choose from a variety of characters that depict several periods of a life. You not only seem to transcend into different times, but you are left with the longing to return…
A great book to read indeed, astonishing in its narration and real in its dialogues. Truly it is set to make an influence, and has made an influence on me.
vineri, 25 martie 2011
miercuri, 16 martie 2011
Flow. The psychology of optimal experience
I have finally read this book. I've heard about it and was curios of the perspective presented in it. I must confess I'm pleased and contempt with what I have found out. Some of the results from research confirm some of my personal beliefs and ruminations, while others provide new ground for philosophical discussions with friends and loved ones. It was the book that marked the arrival of spring for me (for my mind and body).
Because it sums up the result of qualitative and quantitative research it might at first glance sound like a book intended to change everything you know. After a close reading the book opens one of the most fundamental subjects that any human being addresses during her/his lifetime: How can I be happy? How can I live a meaningful life?
The realization and answer must come only after close consideration of purposes, goals and important things in life (including experiences). Only when we invest a little time to figure out what is important for us and what we want to be and be defined of, we will be sure to make the decisions which will takes us close to our optimal experience and ultimately to a life of meaning and accomplishment.
I think it is empowering to find out what things and experiences make other humans feel happy or optimal about their action and life. The huge diversity of examples gives any mortal hope that she or he will find out (if she/he is willing to search within herself/himself) what must or can do to take their lives seriously and on a new level of awareness and happiness.
I took my time enjoying it, but as with all great books it’s purpose is to stir things inside you and then to challenge you to see the importance and relevance of your own decision and to help you keep in mind that order in the mind is the thing that keeps us strong.
May the force(perseverance and order in mind) be with you!
Because it sums up the result of qualitative and quantitative research it might at first glance sound like a book intended to change everything you know. After a close reading the book opens one of the most fundamental subjects that any human being addresses during her/his lifetime: How can I be happy? How can I live a meaningful life?
The realization and answer must come only after close consideration of purposes, goals and important things in life (including experiences). Only when we invest a little time to figure out what is important for us and what we want to be and be defined of, we will be sure to make the decisions which will takes us close to our optimal experience and ultimately to a life of meaning and accomplishment.
I think it is empowering to find out what things and experiences make other humans feel happy or optimal about their action and life. The huge diversity of examples gives any mortal hope that she or he will find out (if she/he is willing to search within herself/himself) what must or can do to take their lives seriously and on a new level of awareness and happiness.
I took my time enjoying it, but as with all great books it’s purpose is to stir things inside you and then to challenge you to see the importance and relevance of your own decision and to help you keep in mind that order in the mind is the thing that keeps us strong.
May the force(perseverance and order in mind) be with you!
miercuri, 26 ianuarie 2011
Castele de carton/ Castillos de carton
Reading of how a friendship develops into love is always fun and brings up good memories of my own romance.
But what can you do when that friendship and romance involves three people?
Two men, Marcos and Jaime, and a girl, (Maria) Jose, find out that what they have is unique and gives them the meaning of true love. But because of their trio at first they find it fun and liberating but in the long run they cannot escape the social pressures and the fact that even though love can be big, it always is directed more towards one person that the other. So, at the end of their art faculty, they realize that although the year has given them great feelings and they have shared wonderful experiences, they are at a point of rupture. Realizing this they know none of them can become a couple without the third one.
Jaime and Jose start to feel more love towards one another, Marcos is in love with Jose, Marcos is much more talented at painting than both of them are, is afraid of manifesting his talent through his work, of fear of losing them both.
When he finally decides to submit some painting to a gallery he is received with great success, but left alone by the other two, and without someone to share his success with. This is the final moment for their relationship. They grow apart and although Jose gets back with Marcos, she will be all her life in love with Jaime, but knowing that nothing can be as it was when they were twenty and art students, sharing their love, passion for painting and feeling a harmony in being the three of them.
Marcos becomes the greatest painter of his generation and receives unanimous praise from both art critics and general public. Jose immerses herself in her work, and Jaime is being himself, managing to go through life as the opportunistic he always was.
Only at the funeral of Marcos (he commits suicide) they realize that although when being a trio they felt like they were complete, they could never feel the same again because a part of that is irremediably dead, and because that state was not powerful enough.
In a way they wanted everything and discovered, too late, that in order to have something you must make some compromises, to want and achieve only what is important, but then they were too young, and only with time they could achieve that wisdom.
But what can you do when that friendship and romance involves three people?
Two men, Marcos and Jaime, and a girl, (Maria) Jose, find out that what they have is unique and gives them the meaning of true love. But because of their trio at first they find it fun and liberating but in the long run they cannot escape the social pressures and the fact that even though love can be big, it always is directed more towards one person that the other. So, at the end of their art faculty, they realize that although the year has given them great feelings and they have shared wonderful experiences, they are at a point of rupture. Realizing this they know none of them can become a couple without the third one.
Jaime and Jose start to feel more love towards one another, Marcos is in love with Jose, Marcos is much more talented at painting than both of them are, is afraid of manifesting his talent through his work, of fear of losing them both.
When he finally decides to submit some painting to a gallery he is received with great success, but left alone by the other two, and without someone to share his success with. This is the final moment for their relationship. They grow apart and although Jose gets back with Marcos, she will be all her life in love with Jaime, but knowing that nothing can be as it was when they were twenty and art students, sharing their love, passion for painting and feeling a harmony in being the three of them.
Marcos becomes the greatest painter of his generation and receives unanimous praise from both art critics and general public. Jose immerses herself in her work, and Jaime is being himself, managing to go through life as the opportunistic he always was.
Only at the funeral of Marcos (he commits suicide) they realize that although when being a trio they felt like they were complete, they could never feel the same again because a part of that is irremediably dead, and because that state was not powerful enough.
In a way they wanted everything and discovered, too late, that in order to have something you must make some compromises, to want and achieve only what is important, but then they were too young, and only with time they could achieve that wisdom.
marți, 25 ianuarie 2011
Oranges are not the only fruit
Another great novel and I loved it! I like how the author makes this great autobiographical account of a teenager trying to discover her way in faith, life and love.
Jeanette was brought up in a Baptist setting by a mother obsessed of the fear of devils and sins and the permanent battle for saving your soul in case the end of the world comes sooner (every next day) than expected. She first starts to question her upbringing when she attends to public school and there, her biblical messages are not well received by others, students or teachers. There she sees that people are different and starts to question her mother intolerability towards anything that doesn’t match her system of belief or values.
Most of the things in her life fall into that category after she starts to have feelings towards a fellow Christian, Melanie. They start to have a friendship that ends up being romantic and the community is outraged by the prospect so they organize session of exorcism for her and Melanie. Melanie leaves the community, but Jeanette takes the decision to continue her work in the church, but to be still true to herself. In a way she keeps the orange colored devil inside her (the Baptist church, apparently, have a way of dividing devils by their color).
Adolescence is the period in which she discovers a lot of limitations for women and , because, her feelings had their one way she starts falling in love with Katy, which is much more open in sharing her feelings as well. They commit a small mistake when they decide to take a holiday at a pension and the community finds out that she is “possessed” once more and try to figure out the course of action. This time Jeanette leaves the church, starts to work on her one, she leaves her family home, only to return in visit after two years and discover that no matter how much you feel that you family is odd(she is an adopted girl) there are some strings in place that can make you come home. In a way we don’t have the possibility to change or to evolve without making peace with the past or letting the door open for the moment when we would like to look at our past actions or events.
Growing up is difficult, and finding out that what you knew or know is not all that is can be confusing or liberating. For Jeanette it was the latter.
Jeanette was brought up in a Baptist setting by a mother obsessed of the fear of devils and sins and the permanent battle for saving your soul in case the end of the world comes sooner (every next day) than expected. She first starts to question her upbringing when she attends to public school and there, her biblical messages are not well received by others, students or teachers. There she sees that people are different and starts to question her mother intolerability towards anything that doesn’t match her system of belief or values.
Most of the things in her life fall into that category after she starts to have feelings towards a fellow Christian, Melanie. They start to have a friendship that ends up being romantic and the community is outraged by the prospect so they organize session of exorcism for her and Melanie. Melanie leaves the community, but Jeanette takes the decision to continue her work in the church, but to be still true to herself. In a way she keeps the orange colored devil inside her (the Baptist church, apparently, have a way of dividing devils by their color).
Adolescence is the period in which she discovers a lot of limitations for women and , because, her feelings had their one way she starts falling in love with Katy, which is much more open in sharing her feelings as well. They commit a small mistake when they decide to take a holiday at a pension and the community finds out that she is “possessed” once more and try to figure out the course of action. This time Jeanette leaves the church, starts to work on her one, she leaves her family home, only to return in visit after two years and discover that no matter how much you feel that you family is odd(she is an adopted girl) there are some strings in place that can make you come home. In a way we don’t have the possibility to change or to evolve without making peace with the past or letting the door open for the moment when we would like to look at our past actions or events.
Growing up is difficult, and finding out that what you knew or know is not all that is can be confusing or liberating. For Jeanette it was the latter.
duminică, 9 ianuarie 2011
Bag of Bones
Ok, so I got this book for Christmas. I’m always grateful to receive books and to find out a bit how other view my literary interests.
About the book: it’s big, and reading it I couldn’t stop thinking how I would’ve liked to be the editor because some parts of it could have easily been erased and the story would have retained its consistency and maybe would be less appealing to the eye (due to its physical shrinking: from 800 pages to about 300 for my fashion).
I was a bit perplexed about how the author seems to throw in every piece of artillery that he has just to make a book, a consistent one with an intrigue and all. Crime, ghosts, the sense of a community hiding a dark secret, the loss of loved ones- all these are found in the book. It might seem cluttered when I presented them, but due to the length of the book they were all generously presented (how I wish I could have edited it). It seemed like some classic American story, the one that you could find it has been put in many movie scripts. It’s in a way gripping and it does have the authenticity of style, but I must say I didn’t quite read before too much ghost stories.
Some thoughts about the characters:
Well, Mike Noonan seems to be a bit empty of substance but the author seems to pour into him the substance of other characters, because he most resembles to a mirror, a receptacle for everything that his life gives him. He is thrown into the secret of his summer house by the ghost of his late wife, and the he finds out the secret of the community residing in TR. From there on he is only in a way possessed by ghosts of the dead or the ghosts of threats felt from the community. His wife helps him to keep his mind integrity and gives him the chance to protect a little girl which symbolizes the unborn baby that died along with its mother. Kyra is the girl that will bring a new order to things, she will in a way help break the curse that fell upon the community of Maine, after a terrible crime committed at the beginning of the XX century.
Thanks to Diana and Dan for the present!
About the book: it’s big, and reading it I couldn’t stop thinking how I would’ve liked to be the editor because some parts of it could have easily been erased and the story would have retained its consistency and maybe would be less appealing to the eye (due to its physical shrinking: from 800 pages to about 300 for my fashion).
I was a bit perplexed about how the author seems to throw in every piece of artillery that he has just to make a book, a consistent one with an intrigue and all. Crime, ghosts, the sense of a community hiding a dark secret, the loss of loved ones- all these are found in the book. It might seem cluttered when I presented them, but due to the length of the book they were all generously presented (how I wish I could have edited it). It seemed like some classic American story, the one that you could find it has been put in many movie scripts. It’s in a way gripping and it does have the authenticity of style, but I must say I didn’t quite read before too much ghost stories.
Some thoughts about the characters:
Well, Mike Noonan seems to be a bit empty of substance but the author seems to pour into him the substance of other characters, because he most resembles to a mirror, a receptacle for everything that his life gives him. He is thrown into the secret of his summer house by the ghost of his late wife, and the he finds out the secret of the community residing in TR. From there on he is only in a way possessed by ghosts of the dead or the ghosts of threats felt from the community. His wife helps him to keep his mind integrity and gives him the chance to protect a little girl which symbolizes the unborn baby that died along with its mother. Kyra is the girl that will bring a new order to things, she will in a way help break the curse that fell upon the community of Maine, after a terrible crime committed at the beginning of the XX century.
Thanks to Diana and Dan for the present!
vineri, 17 decembrie 2010
You shall know your velocity
The story of how two friends plan to see the world in a week, well, not the entire world, only the "relevant" (to them) parts. Their adventures are full of the plans and dreams they made when they were kids, and now they want to run from their ordinary lives and make them happen.
It was a tragic year for them. Their friend, Jack, died in a car accident and they seem lost without the only good piece in their trio. Will got beaten by some guys, because they had mistaken them for Hand(who in a way was guilty of something). Will got an astounding amount of money for some picture with him changing a light bolt, and now he felt like giving them all away in an impulse of catharsis. He convinces Hand to take a leave from work and to travel with him for a week.
They go to Senegal, and then Morocco, London and Estonia and New York and then Will finishes his journey to a wedding in Mexico City. They start in Senegal where they have different plans on how and to whom they should give money, the same in Morocco and other places where they venture. They seem to be drawn in adventures where they are at the edge of death and living, and come triumphant. This gives them the feeling that they could accomplish anything. But Will cannot forgive his friend Hand for leaving them to get the beating and in the end of the journey he realizes that the only friend that wouldn't have let him alone has Jack, but that Jack is dead and he couldn't do anything to save him, or to avenge his death. He only tries to live with a disfigured face and to come on top of his depressing thoughts. In the end he does seem to realize the things important to him and how he would like to be, but like a complete circle of events, this epiphany is the mark of an approaching death. He dies, two months after attending his friend wedding in Mexico.
The journey, the monologues that Will has, the way that Hand seems to take life as a big joke, are only aspects of different approaches to what seems important in this life. Money do make a difference, the characters know and feel that, but the friendship they had also made a difference. Unfortunately their friendship cannot be the same as a part of what made it special is gone(Jack their friend was the rational part, the one that seem to take confort in the little things). Sometimes, friendships can be ruined by the lack of understanding of the perspectives that the people in it have. Every person has different approaches to life, to important things and sometimes is easy to mistake them for being irrelevant, and then hurt each other.
Maybe all friends should have a journey during which they could make a clear stance on what the important things are to them, but it might seem hard and sometimes unattainable.
It was a tragic year for them. Their friend, Jack, died in a car accident and they seem lost without the only good piece in their trio. Will got beaten by some guys, because they had mistaken them for Hand(who in a way was guilty of something). Will got an astounding amount of money for some picture with him changing a light bolt, and now he felt like giving them all away in an impulse of catharsis. He convinces Hand to take a leave from work and to travel with him for a week.
They go to Senegal, and then Morocco, London and Estonia and New York and then Will finishes his journey to a wedding in Mexico City. They start in Senegal where they have different plans on how and to whom they should give money, the same in Morocco and other places where they venture. They seem to be drawn in adventures where they are at the edge of death and living, and come triumphant. This gives them the feeling that they could accomplish anything. But Will cannot forgive his friend Hand for leaving them to get the beating and in the end of the journey he realizes that the only friend that wouldn't have let him alone has Jack, but that Jack is dead and he couldn't do anything to save him, or to avenge his death. He only tries to live with a disfigured face and to come on top of his depressing thoughts. In the end he does seem to realize the things important to him and how he would like to be, but like a complete circle of events, this epiphany is the mark of an approaching death. He dies, two months after attending his friend wedding in Mexico.
The journey, the monologues that Will has, the way that Hand seems to take life as a big joke, are only aspects of different approaches to what seems important in this life. Money do make a difference, the characters know and feel that, but the friendship they had also made a difference. Unfortunately their friendship cannot be the same as a part of what made it special is gone(Jack their friend was the rational part, the one that seem to take confort in the little things). Sometimes, friendships can be ruined by the lack of understanding of the perspectives that the people in it have. Every person has different approaches to life, to important things and sometimes is easy to mistake them for being irrelevant, and then hurt each other.
Maybe all friends should have a journey during which they could make a clear stance on what the important things are to them, but it might seem hard and sometimes unattainable.
The Mummy at the dinning room table
This book is excellent for those thinking about a career as a psychologist, counselor or for those which want to know that sometimes people behave in different and unexpected ways because they weren't taught otherwise or the conditions were extreme.
Jeffrey Kottler and Jon Carlson, two of the most prolific therapist started to gather the most unusual cases that great therapists had during their practice. The most memorable, the most challenging for themselves are included in this book. It's a though reading sometimes, because you are put directly in contact with someone else's pain and you must read it with your mind open and judgement free attitude.
I enjoyed reading it and it gave me a deeper understanding of the techniques and methods taught during my masters years, and now I am eager to start my own private practice. The reason for that is that I have come to realize that people are much more engaged in the therapeutic process when they start by giving money/paying for the help they want rather than receiving that help in a public setting, where it is free, and only those who are really committed or know the value of the service can make the change last. I see it in my school office, where I am responsible of speech therapy, and sadly the parents rarely come to make sure that their chid is making progress or how to make the therapy more productive by doing a "homework" at home with their child.
The book is filled with examples of the human power to make changes in their life/environment and by doing this to achieve the goal of happiness or at least the goal of being able to live your life in a peaceful manner. All the therapist had different approaches to their patients problems, but the line that connected all their efforts was that of respect for the power of their patient /client to make a change and their attitude of acceptance towards the person in front of them. That is an attitude we can rarely enjoy from strangers, only the close ones can really accept for what we are and to keep in mind that we have the power to change and to make our dreams/plans come true(though it is a great burden sometimes for our closest not to judge us or to give solutions that they think are helpful for us).
Jeffrey Kottler and Jon Carlson, two of the most prolific therapist started to gather the most unusual cases that great therapists had during their practice. The most memorable, the most challenging for themselves are included in this book. It's a though reading sometimes, because you are put directly in contact with someone else's pain and you must read it with your mind open and judgement free attitude.
I enjoyed reading it and it gave me a deeper understanding of the techniques and methods taught during my masters years, and now I am eager to start my own private practice. The reason for that is that I have come to realize that people are much more engaged in the therapeutic process when they start by giving money/paying for the help they want rather than receiving that help in a public setting, where it is free, and only those who are really committed or know the value of the service can make the change last. I see it in my school office, where I am responsible of speech therapy, and sadly the parents rarely come to make sure that their chid is making progress or how to make the therapy more productive by doing a "homework" at home with their child.
The book is filled with examples of the human power to make changes in their life/environment and by doing this to achieve the goal of happiness or at least the goal of being able to live your life in a peaceful manner. All the therapist had different approaches to their patients problems, but the line that connected all their efforts was that of respect for the power of their patient /client to make a change and their attitude of acceptance towards the person in front of them. That is an attitude we can rarely enjoy from strangers, only the close ones can really accept for what we are and to keep in mind that we have the power to change and to make our dreams/plans come true(though it is a great burden sometimes for our closest not to judge us or to give solutions that they think are helpful for us).
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