sunn_bleach's Reviews (249)

The fiction and parables are absolutely incredible, and they are picture-perfect examples of how philosophical concepts can be expressed through narrative. Just absolutely amazing; Borges approaches topics by having an idea and then writing about someone writing about that idea.

The nonfiction/essays are painful. His musings on infinity remind me so much of navelgazing nonsense from so many other famous philosophers. Amazing to read someone in the 1900s write about how confusing Zeno’s Paradox is as if calculus hasn’t solved it centuries ago. Just take a math class for once, philosophers; writing confusingly and acting smug isn’t actually a cogent point.

Either the most pretentious book I’ve ever read, the most sardonic, or the most nonsensical. I’m inclined to believe the second one - there’s some serious excoriation of the manic dream girl ideal and the propensity of people to believe their life problems are solved one idea after another. But I also echo all other criticisms of tone and word choice. I wish there were more colors.

One of the best books I’ve read in the last five years. An amazingly detailed account of the intricacies of life, thought, and action. Though the premise is pedestrian, the outcome is not. Come to think of it… the premise isn’t either.

Hard to give it a review other than loving the style of point-counterpoint-countercounterpoint that informs one’s evolution and attachment to racist and antiracist ideas.

The two points I realized that this book was kind of dumb were when a set of characters unironically said “humans are the real virus!” and when a character who owns a human hunting preserve was explicitly said to own the Necronomicon. Can you be any more on the nose?

It’s a huge allegory for killing animals that I signed up for but I also got the point 20 pages in, and the book never actually did something with it other than play cliché misanthropy.

Ending is pointless and utterly at odds with the rest of the protagonist’s thoughts and actions. It’s not a good twist, it’s just a lazy “gotcha!”.

Plenty of strong works here, mostly leaning on the “fantastic” side with lots of commentary on social and political realities.

Best thing about this book is how funny it is. Farquhar wrote with a certain kind of early modernist author appeal that saw him and his subjects as not infallible but in conversations with each other across history. This inspired tone of wry comments peppered throughout the notes and parentheticals. Plenty of info on native Americans and settler life are left out in the desire for a compact and Amerocentric perspective, but he does seem aware of this significant pitfall in the history he had access to in the 1960s.

Environmental writing is occasionally hard to read without it being utterly doomy. Yes, I know the world is likely fucked. And? I have to live in it. Around 2/3 of these stories are on that end. The other 1/3 offer what isn’t necessarily hope but a path, and those are the good ones. The poetry is generally slipshod; I don’t care for Rupi Kaur-style free verse with random like spaces.

Some of the essays retread the same ground, but that’s to be expected in a series of collected essays from over a decade. I’m always surprised by how damn funny Hawking is - some of his quips have incredible wit behind them.

Don’t let the dust cover trick you - this book is not about the future of parks. This is a book about an old man complaining that people use the trails differently than him - the ultimate boomer nature writing that will certainly have the crotchety fellow nodding their heads the whole time. Of particular note is how he is sad that younger generations don’t participate in the outdoors as much, but rather than explore the reasons why - like economic disenfranchisement, the triumph of suburbia, and access difficulties - he simply waves it away as too much TV and video games. And that’s basically the whole book - bringing up problems without any solutions, and the shallowest of considerations for why the future is different.