DOUBLE PARKED BOOKS

I'm addicted to the Harry Hole books. This one is like a roller coaster. You think you know who the villain is (along with Harry) but the situation changes so the you have to start guessing all over again.

It is compelling like a bag of Nestle Kisses - you want read just one chapter every night but you end up reading more & more until you realize it's 2:30 am & you need to get up at 7. Someone braver than I may interrupt by telling me what time it is. Not a good Idea. Uncharacteristically grouchy, I give that person a look that means tread lightly or you might not see 7 o'clock!

I am impressed with Jo Nesbo's way of introducing unbelievable places & situations without making them seem contrived. Yeah, they are fantastic, but he makes me believe they could exist.

The "apple" device gave me chills. I didn't look it up because I'm afraid it that someone has created such a weapon. I don't want to live in a world where it exists. I found myself cringing because I could almost feel the terror and the pain the victims experienced as it did its job.

Throughout the book there were scenes which I almost wanted to skip (I didn't) but I kept reading because I didn't want to miss anything. It's that compelling.

Yes, he was the  winner of the 1964 Nobel Prize  in Literature (which he declined - how cool is that!) but what really impressed me  was that Sartre was Simone de Beauvoir’s partner. As a Feminist (like her), I revered her! Forget the Feminine Mystique,  The Second Sex spoke to me like no other book – and led me to explore Sartre. So began a summer of  sweet depression,  alienation and existentialism.

The book tells the story of  Antoine Roquentin, a French writer who is experiencing a crisis of identity and questioning his very existence. It’s the perfect scenario for dramatizing Sartre’s philosophy – Existentialism. Read the book or look it up at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism to find out the meaning. I’m too lazy to do all the work for you.

I have to admit that I read this book in the summer between finishing high school and starting college – a time when I felt sure everything I’d been taught was  irrelevant. When I read Nausea, I thought and acted like I had discovered the holy grail! I told all my friends (all 3 of them) they HAD to read it. I fell in love with this book with the intensity only a young person in their late teens can. (Evidently not all young people  feel this way. My best friend still blames me ruining her summer by insisting that she read it.)

It isn’t necessarily that the book revealed all the secrets of the universe to me, but it did start a whole summer of revelations. In the process of having to explain why I thought this book was so great I starting Thinking (capital “t” not a mistype) rationally and realizing that a sound argument is not merely a matter of volume, wit and “touches!”  I read more Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir along with other modern philosophers. I also began establishing my philosophy.

Philosophy itself was a new concept to me. Not because I didn’t know about it, but because I had a vague idea that philosophy had pretty much began and ended with the Greeks. OK, maybe I would even add St. Augustine – but by then I was already “outgrowing” the Catholic Church. I was primed for new ideas.

Am I an existentialist or a Marxist now?  The only way I can answer that is that once one has completed 10 or so years beyond 19, experience teaches you that life is too complicated to be able to define yourself by one or two words that are loaded with dynamite. All that I feel sure about is that I still consider myself a feminist and I still have enough optimism to call myself a liberal.

I do recommend this book – if for nothing else to challenge your ideas. If for you, as for me, it turns becomes the middle of a wheel with many spokes, you are in for a lot of research. I give it 4 stars (out of  5)  being for being challenging and thought-provoking.

“Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want.”
― Ayn Rand

There are people I dislike at a visceral level but after reading a biography or memoir I at least understand them. I may even discover redeeming qualities in them. Not so with Ayn Rand - she was a hideously heartless human being.

A Russian immigrant, she came to the United States as the best hope her family had for immigrating after she succeeded in making a comfortable life for herself. Her father's favorite, she was intelligent and well educated. Every member of her family sacrificed their own aspirations in order for her to complete her education and to immigrate. She did not repay their sacrifices. Instead she rationalized that, as a superior person, she deserved what she received. Furthermore, she rejected anyone who did anything against their own interest as inferior. Not one member of her family immigrated to the U.S. after her.

Throughout her life this scenario repeated itself. She accepted help from American relatives, took advantage of friend's offers, and used her meek husband to achieve her goals. Ultimately, she used, abused and abandoned admirers and followers without even blinking an eye. Hers was an ego so large that there was no room for a conscience. Self aggrandisement and a hatred for communism colored her world view.

Incomprehensibly, she did have charisma. Her followers adored her and hung on her every word. A great many influential conservative men - Alan Greenspan and William F. Buckley among them - were not only "acolytes" but went on to give her "philosophy" credence. I say "philosophy" because she never actually wrote any academic works delineating her beliefs.

She is best known for her early screenplays and fiction - Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, for example. She also self-published non-fiction and essays and gave speeches in favor of conservative candidates. It is from these that her admirers have cobbled her philosophy of Objectivism - objective self interest. It is now variously misinterpreted by the Tea Party, many conservative Republicans and Libertarians. Interestingly, she would have rejected all of her current admirers. In fact. in more than one occasion she talked and wrote that she despised Libertarians and rejected anyone who believed in religion as inferior.

While the content of the book was interesting, the writing itself was gossipy, tedious and repetitive. Good editing would have cut the size of this book by a third. Three stars.

I'm addicted to the Harry Hole books. This one is like a roller coaster. You think you know who the villain is (along with Harry) but the situation changes so the you have to start guessing all over again.

It is compelling like a bag of Nestle Kisses - you want read just one chapter every night but you end up reading more & more until you realize it's 2:30 am & you need to get up at 7. Someone braver than I may interrupt by telling me what time it is. Not a good Idea. Uncharacteristically grouchy, I give that person a look that means tread lightly or you might not see 7 o'clock!

I am impressed with Jo Nesbo's way of introducing unbelievable places & situations without making them seem contrived. Yeah, they are fantastic, but he makes me believe they could exist.

The "apple" device gave me chills. I didn't look it up because I'm afraid it that someone has created such a weapon. I don't want to live in a world where it exists. I found myself cringing because I could almost feel the terror and the pain the victims experienced as it did its job.

Throughout the book there were scenes which I almost wanted to skip (I didn't) but I kept reading because I didn't want to miss anything. It's that compelling.