Hamlet By William Shakespeare

Hamlet By William Shakespeare
               …My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

Besides being one of the most powerful tragedies of English literature, Hamlet has also been one of the oft-cited works in philosophy, psychology and fiction. From being the absurd hero of Albert Camus’s philosophy, to being the Oedipus of Freudian psychoanalytics, Hamlet has played more parts without The Tragedy of Hamlet than he has played within.

The reader is immediately put in the state of discomfort by Shakespeare when he begins the play with an apparition appearing before soldiers. Then the plot unravels and we come to know how Claudius, the current King of Denmark seemed to have murdered his brother and married his wife Gertrude. The apparition is none other than King Hamlet who has been slain so mischievously. His son Hamlet is immediately put in conflict by the apparition when he is charged to execute Claudius’s murder to avenge his father’s.

The text, it seems to me, does not accentuate how Hamlet proceeds to execute his dead father's will, but why he is hesitant and conflicted while doing so. While psychoanalytical theories have attributed this to Oedipus’s complex in Hamlet, and search for the absurd in text would point us to its meta-theatrical nature, I think these layers in themselves is what makes hamlet a tale that has stuck in literature for such a long time. The pause between intention and action seems to be more interesting to me than the action itself. Shakespeare’s work is rife with irony, sarcasm and metaphors. Hamlet is not a difficult read, but interpreting the meaning of metaphors could be trying at some points.

I can safely recommend Hamlet to any general reader.

The Castle (Das Schloss) by Franz Kafka

The Castle (Das Schloss) by Franz Kafka
…they’re not intended to detect mistakes in the vulgar sense of the word, since there are no mistakes,

It will not go unnoticed, by a reader who has had a chance to consume one of Kafka’s other works such as The Trial or The metamorphosis, that the subtitle is incomplete and the reader is likely to understand the analogue when he or she reads The Castle by Kafka. The castle is the story of a man called K( immediately seen similar to the protaganist of The Trial) who is a stranger(to the backdrop) that comes to a village on being recruited as a land surveyor. As the story unfolds, or in this case, becomes thicker with layers of oppression, bureaucracy and aloofness, K , who seemed to be quite assertive at first, slowly becomes part of the illusion of the castle.

As is noted in the English translation published by Oxford, it would be too narrow to just consider the work as an example of ‘Kafkaesque’ texts. The castle is more clear, even somewhat more hopeful (though this can be my own perception) than The Trial and Metamorphosis. In this work, the protagonist seems to be capable of love and is able to assert his feelings over his then context, even if only incidentally. Kafka’s writing is coherent, but full of puzzles and intentionally fallacious logic that actively engages the reader in his work. The constancy of man’s struggle with a higher form or object , in both negating the form or cherishing it, is imbued in the reader as he turns the pages and sure enough, as is true with all the works of Kafka that I’ve read, he or she is given no real comfort or closure. This superiority of an ambiguous authority figure, which may or may not have real control, is demonstrated to be obvious or natural and all other ways of living are deemed unnatural or unthinkable.

Kafka, through his pen, has once again succeeded, even with a partial work, to create a world that at first is difficult to even comprehend but slowly becomes threateningly obvious.

The castle is a must read for readers who can bear to live without closure.

The myth of Sisyphus & other essays – by Albert Camus

The myth of Sisyphus & other essays – by Albert Camus

     …for nothing is vanity to him except the hope of another life.

In a universe where existence of God is doubtful, and one finds no reason to live the most important question to answer can only be- why must not one commit suicide? Albert Camus’s ‘The myth of Sisyphus’ attempts to answer this question by first accepting the meaninglessness and disconnectedness of man and his reality and then dwelling on the reasons and paradigms of why man can and possibly should choose not to kill himself amidst such a world.

Camus attempts to define what he calls ‘the absurd’ as a quasi- adjective that he later uses to define elements such as absurd art, absurd literature and absurd man through the description and analysis of characters such as Don Juan, one of the greatest known lovers of fiction, Dostoevsky’s Kirilov and Kafka’s Joseph K. The myth of Sisyphus itself comes near the end as the apotheosis to the analyses. Albert Camus’ writing is quite passionate and still logical, though I cannot say for sure how much of the quality of the work was lost in translation. Camus’s ideas are themselves not easy to comprehend, but his attempt to present the same idea from different perspectives in order to exposit his philosophy is not only commendable but also quite artful. The reader should have basic ideas related to the literary references Camus makes in his work. Reading Kafka, Dostoevsky, and the myth of Sisyphus itself would go a long way in painting a cohesive picture of Camus' philosophy in the mind of the reader.

In the other essays, Camus has beautifully described cities such as Algiers and Oran. The description is quite vivid and one can almost feel transported to the places he describes.

I recommend this work to those who have already read one of Camus’ other works and want to delve deeper into his philosophy. This work probably would not be very interesting to a general reader.

Best Russian Short Stories- Edited by Thomas Seltzer

Best Russian short stories- Edited by Thomas Seltzer

   …I am not in the position to sacrifice the necessary in the hope of winning the superfluous.

I believe that the subtitle, a quote from Pushkin’s ‘The Queen of Spades’, depicts what the Russian literature is all about- veracity, simplicity and revelation of the basic nature of human. Through his meticulously selected compilation of short stories from some of the most acclaimed Russian writers, Thomas Seltzer is able to put this visceral sense of Russian style across to the readers. From the romance of Pushkin to the simplicity of Tolstoy to the innovation and economy of Chekov- everything is quite apparent in this compilation. It would be impossible to say whether or not these short stories are the ‘best’ Russian short stories and also treat these as a single work while critiquing them. I think the best way, although a long one, would be to take up the task author-wise.

Pushkin’s ‘The queen of spades’ stands on the cusp of romance and realism of Russian literature. His characters are able to lie to themselves and accentuate the base nature of greed hidden in the quasi love of the story. ‘The cloak’ by Gogol is no ordinary story, and yet, it has the most ordinary plot that hauls characters, fixated between ennui, poverty and plainness, against a preternatural backdrop. Gogol is able to create his own world of drudgery, reality, bureaucracy and a certain almost hidden sense of grotesqueness. Turgenev’s ‘The district doctor’ is a beautiful work of Russian realism that depicts the conflict between profession and love while at the same time creating an image of love caused by the absence of it. Dostoevsky through his work ‘The Christmas Tree and the wedding’ has once again been able to achieve the same magnitude of extraordinary poignancy as ‘Crime and Punishment’ is able to bring about. His truth is adorned with nothing. It is stark naked, showing human emotions for what they are. Tolstoy’s sketch of the old man who is wrongfully convicted of a crime in ‘God sees the truth, but waits’ emanates the futility of indignation and superiority of moral actions. It almost betrays his own doubt regarding the justness of God, although this could very well be my own perception(for Tolstoy had firm faith in Christianity). Saltykov’s tale ‘How a Muzhik fed two officials’ is quite allegorical and though I believe that it is not the best example of Russian realism, it shines as a glorious example of satire in Russian literature. Though Muzhik has no obligation – either professional or moral- to server the officers, he does so gratefully like it is his nature. This sort of image brings a strong sense of absurdity in mind and when one puts this absurdity with the reality of serfdom, one is amazed by how much the system didn’t make sense. I am partial to Socrates and because he is the protagonist in Korolenko’s work ‘The shades, a phantasy’, which has quite magnificent imagery, I don’t think I am able to critique his work neutrally. I found his work to be disproportionately unlike any other Russian works that I’ve read and still without a doubt one of the most significant ones. Socrates, in my mind, in a not a hero but a ‘gadfly’ as the author puts it- who prevents us from dozing off into the slumber of ignorance and groupthink. Garshin’s ‘The signal’ is again a simple sketch that shows the Russian society as it was from the perspective of a track-walker. It is without any charms and purpose and I feel it somehow, although not perfectly, achieves the pity evoking quality of Dostoevsky.

All of three Chekov’s works are brilliant and ‘inventive’ as Seltzer himself describes when introducing the compilation. His economy of words and simplicity are exemplary. No doubt he is one of the most acclaimed short story writers of the world. From the futility of material after attainment of knowledge presented in ‘The bet’ to the elements of misery that emanate from a simple letter of a child in ‘Vanka’ to the never told lack of self-image a lady in ‘The darling’- Chekov’s brilliance shines in brevity and plots of his tales. The magic of the little girl’s utterance of “Tiu Tiu, Mamochka!” in Sologub’s work ‘Hide and seek’ evokes a heart rending feeling that is unlike sadness or pity. Its sweetness is a mixture of tears and joy. Potapenko’s ‘Dethroned’ presents an insignificant and laughable picture of aristocracy through the depiction of competition between two ladies in the backdrop of servility and pseudo-loyalty of a ladies tailor. S.T. Semyonov is able to present the Russian poor through the glass of his own eyes. His tale portrays sacrifice as a simple unsaid thing for the poor, quite different from how the men of means see it. Gorky’s works ‘One autumn night’ and ‘ Her lover’ are brazen and do not shy away from the unsaid elements of the society. Andreyev’s ‘Lazarus’ is a philosophical work more than a literary one- ‘In the eyes of the infinite wisdom and folly are the same, for infinite knows them not’. This work is one of my favorite stories, if not the favorite, in this compilation. It addresses the question “what is death?” and hints at questions “What is God?” without the sophistry that often comes with these questions. Artzybashev’s work ‘The revolutionist’ tries to capture the same zeal as Doestovsky’s ‘Crime and punishment’ and partially succeeds in it. Kuprin’s work ‘The Outrage’ treats the grave subject of pogrom(religious persecution of Jews) in a light way but succeeds as a story with a flavor that doesn’t care about morality and tries to intentionally stick to a fallacious flow of logic. I really enjoyed reading this story.

All in all, this compilation is a must read for all those who want to be acquainted with some of the most acclaimed Russian short story writers. The pithy introduction to this work by Seltzer is a cherry on the top and is best read after the work instead of before it.

Mottled Dawn By Saadat Hasan Manto

Mottled Dawn By Saadat Hasan Manto

      … In between, on a bit of earth, which had no name, lay Toba Tek Singh.

Though Manto has been compared with Gogol, I’ve found his work to be quite unique even more powerful than the works of Gogol that I've read. Mottled Dawn is a collection of fifty sketches and stories of partition of India. Rather than dwelling on the political nuances, Manto’s ironic, brazen and sometimes outright vile tales speak of the horror of human actions caused by conformity, hopelessness , guilt and revenge. His vivid descriptions of atrocities that took place during India-Pakistan secession and its impact on every man is sure to evoke strong emotions to this work- hatred, love or plain disgust.

In this sense, Manto is a romantic. Often, in his works one finds an appeal to logic- to rationality. But sprinting through the burning train coaches haunted by religion and politics, holding the sword of nationalism for nations that do not exist, becoming sub-human and engaging in unimaginable depravity- these are the shoes that the reader is forced to walk in. Through the words that he uses and the events that he depicts as 'obvious', Manto is able to create a Kafkaesque world that is sans secrets. Everything is revealed. The villain is no longer a hidden para-normal concept- it is you.

The essence of the book can be understood through these lines: “Look this is hardly fair. You sold me impure petrol at black-market price and not even one shop could be put to the torch”. Manto’s mottled dawn is not a compilation of what transpired in particular nations. It is the story of human beings faced with randomness, freedom and personal conscience after years of oppression. Are they evolved enough to use these judiciously?

This work is recommended for all those who want to understand human psyche in context of war and revolutions. Reader should expect the stories to be vile, surreal and sometimes even meaningless.

The last lecture By Randy Pausch

The last lecture By Randy Pausch                            

               …We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.

When Socrates emphatically said ‘death may be the greatest of all human blessings’ as he faced certain death in his famous speech of Apology, he could have been rationalizing to reduce his dissonance. He could have been raising himself to martyrdom…or perhaps he could have had an epiphany of sorts in the wake of his near death. In either case, his catharsis became one of the greatest works of literature through Plato’s pen. And thus, it seems, that certainty of death creates a certain visceral backdrop on its perceivers that can amaze them, render them hopeless or fill them with an energy that can seem supernatural.

Randy Pausch, through his work ‘the last lecture’, has been able to do all of these three. Though his focus was on opportunities, philosophies of life and specific goals like realization of childhood dreams, the fact that he is terminally ill looms over the entire work. Everything he says, through this looking glass of death is magnified and impactful. This is not to say that his ‘lessons in learning’ are lackluster without this looking glass, but only that they are more poignant on account of it. Neutrally critiquing such a work is a daunting task similar to isolating an artist from his art- ultimately futile. The work is inspired from life. All of author’s opinions, secrets, and love affairs are bits of his memories that are an attempt to conclude his life. Although, author himself seems to be aware of the fact that concluding one’s life is an impossible feat, he, like the romantic he claims to be, makes a sincere effort to do so and in his own way says to the reader-'May life keep inspiring you'.The structure of the work renders it an easy read syntactically. The content and titles of the chapters are apt- ‘efficient’, so to speak, as the author himself is.

I would recommend this work to all those who want to observe how a man succeeds, at least in my opinion, in concluding his own life- and in this process inspires others to live theirs fully.

Der Process(The Trial) By Franz Kafka

Der Process(The Trial) By Franz Kafka
                            …it is often better to be in chains than to be free.

The Trial is an incomplete novel by Franz Kafka. It is incomplete, not only in the sense that the author did not fully write what he intended to write but also that the story is intentionally devoid of content. The missing component of the story is arguably more obtrusive than what is in it. And thus, the void of the story actually defines it.

The Trial brings to light the indictment of Josef K., who is the chief clerk at a bank. From the character development of Josef K., it would seem that he sees himself as a morally and socially upright person who is well respected in the society. One day, out of the blue, he finds himself indicted for a crime that he believes he is not guilty of committing As the story unfolds, Josef begins to see how ‘the court’ that will conduct his trial works and finds himself entangled in the web of a surreal, cold and grotesque bureaucratic world where ‘reason’ and ‘law’ are misplaced.

Through his silence-rather than words- Kafka has brought to life a world that is thronged with paranoia, surrealism, and absurdity. As Josef comes in terms with this Kafkaesque world, the readers may find themselves coming to terms with it. And as Josef begins to submit to this world without knowing what it really is, the reader must start to appreciate the insignificance of meaning and content in the horror of syntax and form.

I recommend this work to readers who appreciate surrealism and who are comfortable with unstructured plots.

The metamorphosis By Franz Kafka

The metamorphosis By Franz Kafka

                               …Was he an animal if music could captivate him so?

The metamorphosis is a surreal story of transformation. And, even more so, it is a story of the unchanged in the context of transformation. Through the unvocal, insignificantly fading-in world that he has created by his economically worded lines, Kafka highlights how albeit the character remains constant the personage itself changes when external world does not identify the character. It seems in the story that the acknowledgement of existence of a person by the external world is more significant than the existence of person itself.

It would appear, if one interprets the transformation as purely figurative, that Gregor, the protagonist of the story, transforms one day because he realizes that he is stranded in a meaningless, dreadful existence. He is a travelling salesman who goes to work, where he is presumably not treated well, to pay off his family’s debts and comes home to, if not an ungrateful, a nonchalant family. It seems that through this transformation he has not become something else but merely aware of what he already is. And this awareness coerces him to exist as someone who is aware of themselves as a weary, dreadful creature.

Perhaps the family can no longer find the Gregor who was unaware of his life, and whom they identified as Gregor ; perhaps Gregor's body transformed into something that he already was.

Kafka’s character development and story building are commendable. I couldn't stop reading the story once I started reading it. The language was flowing uninterruptedly from line to line in the translation by David Wyllie.

This work is a must read for readers who have enjoyed works of famous existentialists such as Sartre, Camus and Dostoevsky. General readers are likely to enjoy it too if they ruminate after reading it.

Also sprach Zarathustra Book 1 to 4 By Friedrich Nietzsche

Also sprach Zarathustra(Thus spake Zarathustra)- Book 1 to 4 by Friedrich Nietzsche

…Every day I count wasted in which there has been no dancing.

Nietzsche’s magnum opus Also sprach Zarathustra is definitely one of the obscurest and most magnificent literary works that I’ve read. It is one of those things in life that one grows to love and loathe at the same time.

The work’s meta-satirical plot revolves around its protagonist ‘Zarathustra’ who preaches people as solemn saints do and yet his enunciations mock themselves. In this way, Nietzsche has given much depth and humor to his work and adorned it with unique metaphors and characters that, at least superficially, seem to be saying something to the reader. Through these characters Nietzsche explores his theories and maxims of eternal recurrence, importance of courage, laughter and dancing, and a benign-playful malice. He condemns prolonged peace, gift giving and pity. Even before the chapters on pity turn up, his hatred for it is betrayed when Zarathustra whispers to himself the words that are oft-found in pop culture- ‘God is dead’ and ‘he died of man’s pity’. He then goes on to exposit his idea of the Ubermensch (Overman) and builds on this idea as the work advances. Zarathustra then embellishes the concept of Overman with several ideas that Nietzsche himself stood for.

This work is broken down into four books and around twenty chapters in each book. The reader should not hope for these books or chapters to give structure or a storyline to this work because the work is not linear or tree like syntactically. It is rather a dimensionless poetic meta-sarcastic overflowing biased harsh honey filled raw hodgepodge of ideas, insults, and verses.

Reading about Nietzsche’s life and one of his works (such as the twilight of the idols) before reading this work would help the reader dig out the latent ideas of Nietszche from this work.

Thus spake Zarathustra is recommended only to those who can appreciate the brilliance of chaos and non-sense in literature. It is truly A Book for All and None.

Die Götzen-Dämmerung By Friedrich Nietzsche

Die Götzen-Dämmerung(Twilight of the Idols)- By Friedrich Nietzsche

               ...All the means by which one has so far attempted to make mankind moral were through and through immoral.

Die Götzen-Dämmerung is a mosaic of vehemently asserted opinions by Nietzsche. The themes of these assertions vary from futility of reason and necessity of instinct to decline of German culture in times of the author. In this work, Nietzsche has enumerated advice and desiderata for psychologists, universities, philosophers, physiologists and other professions or people.

One of the outright observations I had from this work is that Nietzsche presents his opinions as facts, unsupported by evidence or partially supported by anecdotes (which amounts to very little). However, this kind of opining is necessary if he does not want to contradict himself when he says that reason corrupts and instinct is what can make a man happy and strong. Further, even if he contradicts himself logically, it wouldn't matter because he asserts that reason corrupts. Thus, since his maxim is without reason, and he makes no attempt to prove otherwise, the contradictions in his thoughts cannot be freely pointed out without contradicting oneself.

Some of his thoughts are violent, almost as if he were in “frenzy” while writing these- this too, as he has exposited beautifully in this work, is what an artist must do- be in frenzy while creating. In this, Nietzsche is an artist. His words are offensive, lacking reason, pedantic, sometimes even dark- but they are bizarrely artful.

This work will be enjoyed only by those who want to read it for its “frenzy” and maybe for some of Nietzsche’s ideas, though I am not sure of the latter.

The Stranger(L'Étranger)- Albert Camus

The Stranger- Albert Camus

…I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe

The stranger is the story of a man who perceives the world matter-of-factly, without either trying to interpret or being able to interpret the moral, “natural” or the ‘usual’ patterns of the world.

The work is a first person narrative by the protagonist, written with very little acknowledgement of what things mean. Even though protagonist’s mother has just died, he is unable to reinterpret his present actions in the light of his past- that he ever loved his mother, or that he did right or wrong by putting her in a home. He goes to her funeral calmly, does not want to see her face presumably because she is dead and has no meaning in the present context of the protagonist.

The brilliance of this work lies in the form of the work rather than the content itself. The protagonist seems to be passive of the things happening to him throughout the story. Rather than feeling guilty about what he has done, he looks for things that are ‘interesting’ and is bored or frustrated by things that are not- like a man estranged from his own life. The world tries to portray him as a man who has no morals- a man who was not perturbed even by his mother’s death. Even though he finds the accusations incredible, he sees himself as ‘too lazy’ to do anything because for him, it doesn't matter if x happens or y if they both lead to z, since z (death in the story) is always the final result. The character of Meursault comes to life through Camus’s pen, and though Meursault’s status quo bias might seem incredible at first, the reader is forced to empathize with him by the end. The reader is forced to acknowledge the ‘as-is-ness’ of life and the certitude of death…In Meursault’s world- the reader is forced to see that everyone is privileged to die; and everything that happens in this setting of death is meaningless- His god, Someone’s death or Meursault’s actions.

A highly recommended read!

Mistakes were made(But not by me) by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson

Mistakes were made(But not by me) by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson

-       Doubt is not the enemy of justice; overconfidence is.

Mistakes were made is a social psychological work coauthored by two eminent contemporary psychologists who are proponents of the theory of dissonance, a more formal version of which has been explored in Elliot Aronson’s ‘The social animal’. Though reading ‘The social animal’ is not necessary for cursory understanding of this book, I think interpreting ‘Mistakes were made’ in the light of the experiments given in ‘the social animal’ would give reader a more neutral perspective towards this work.

The book ‘Mistakes were made’ tries to resonate the message that people make mistakes and refuse to admit them, not because they are lying but because they are deluded by the acts of self justification that is spawned in their mental apparatus to reduce dissonance between their self image (of a smart, decent, human being) and their erroneous actions. The book is written keeping a specific kind of reader in mind: who appreciates sarcasm, humor, emotions and no mumbo jumbo language. I think that I would have preferred a more neutral , scientifically written work. Though the authors assert that people should not be overconfident in their hypotheses (on account of confirmation bias), they are found asserting vehemently that other authors are wrong. Notwithstanding this meta-erroneous nature of this work, the theories and experimental support given in it clearly distinguish it from a self-help book. In fact, personal relationships are treated the same as relationships between nations, and relationships between perpetrator and victim- under the lens of dissonance. The authors do not give a vague explanation of why things transcend. They take solid historical examples that the whole world saw, and attempt to reinterpret them in the wake of theory of dissonance. They do not try to form a closed Freudian loop of argument. They do not make unfalsifiable claims. They do not promulgate propaganda. What they give are excellent metaphors, logically consistent assertions and conclusions; and a great weekend read.