Book Thief - aftermath of the second reading ....

It really happened for the first time in my life. With so many books read, listen to, fascinated by, enchanted with - it did happened for the first time: I read the same book twice from cover to cover in row without stop, without anything read - or even listened to - between.

And the second reading was even better than the first. Try it - Zusak's "Book Thief" is something you will not regret to spend time on.

Now... See few strophes:

"She could feel his breathing and his shoulder moving up and down ever so slightly. For a while, she watched him. Then she sat and leaned back. Sleepy air seemed to have followed her. The scrawled words of practice stood magnificently on the wall by the stairs, jagged and childlike and sweet. They looked on as both the hidden Jew and the girl slept, hand to shoulder. They breathed. German and Jewish lungs. Next to the wall, The Standover Man sat, numb and gratified, like a beautiful itch at Liesel Meminger's feet."

"Liesel stopped breathing. She was suddenly aware of how empty her feet felt inside her shoes. Something ridiculed her throat. She trembled. When finally she reached out and took possession of the letter, she noticed the sound of the clock in the library. Grimly, she realized that clocks don't make a sound that even remotely resembles ticking, tocking. It was more the sound of a hammer, upside down, hacking methodically at the earth. It was the sound of a grave. If only mine was ready now, she thought-because Liesel Meminger, at that moment, wanted to die."

"His armpits were soggy and the words fell like injuries from his mouth."

"It was neither warm nor cool and the town was clear and still. Molching was in a jar. She opened the letter. (...) She was afraid to turn around because she knew that when she did, the glass casing of Molching had now been shattered, and she'd be glad of it."

"A LAST NOTE FROM YOUR NARRATOR: I am haunted by humans."



There is a movie comming in about a year. If I see it right, it features great actor, Adrien Brody ... Here is the trailer:

Book Thief - second helping

As I wrote before, as soon as I finished the book, I started to read it again from the very beginning...
Like Liesel (the main character), who read some of her books several times, I started The Book again and it is even more powerful experience...

See:

"For now, Rudy and Liesel made their way onto Himmel Street in the rain. He was the crazy one who had painted himself black and defeated the world. She was the book thief without the words. Trust me, though, the words were on their way, and when they arrived, Liesel would hold them in her hands like the clouds, and she would wring them out like the rain. "

or:

"Despite the forced labor of breath, she fed the words through the gap in the doorway--between the mayor and the frame - to the woman. Such was her effort to breathe that the words escaped only a few at a time. "

and so on ...

Who is that Zusak ? Shakespeare of prose ?
Maybe.....

We will see in his second book I just start: "I Am The Messenger"....

"There were wooden teardrops and an oaky smile"

Without an exageration I can say that it was one of the best books I ever read...

I finished the reading (i.e. listening) in cold Paris, March 2009 walking on the dark streets of this city. And the first thing I did after I finished was to go back to the beginning and to start it again....

"First the colors. Then the humans" - this is how it starts, the story told from the perspective of ... death personified. The narration brings some far but strong recollections of that used by Norman Mailer in his "The Castle in the Forest", but don't take it as criticism - in fact it is a praise....

What makes Zusak's book such increadible experience? First and foremost - his vacabulary, his parlance, his prose poetry. Bacause of these, you loose the sense of reading the novel, and you feel like you are reading the poetry...

"I can promise you that the world is a factory. The sun stirs it, the humans rule it. And I remain. I carry them away. "

"The girl loved that-- the shivering snow"

One of my friends told me, when recommended the book couple of weeks ago: "I did not know how one could live through the words as it is in the book" ...

But there is also something else. The book has deep meaning and strong message. It is about the most dark period of human history - Nazi Germany. It's about Jewish persecution and Holocaust. But it is also about forgivness, about love, about the simple fact that not all Germans were Nazi and not all Nazis were killers. It's about life in hard times, and about difficult greatness.

Mahler's Hammer

Leonard Bernstein once said that Mahler's music foretold many cataclysms of the XX century....

And Mahler's VI Symphony is the best illustration of Mahler's incredible prophecies.
The symphony that starts in quite a usual, almost romantic climate, but ends with chaotic, hard to understand, quickly changing themes. No triumphal finale, no climax - just chaos....

And that hammer....

I'm sure that in addition to pure strange sonority of that huge hammer - Mahler's offered us a symbol of something - something powerful and fearful, but the most important - something out-of-blue, out-of-scene, something you never expected to happen....

And if this symbol, both musical and figurative, can be interpreted by us who know what would happen in Europe just 40 years later - what the hell is that birch twig percussion also used there? A metaphorical broom ?

There is a bad quality YouTube movie with the finale. A better idea is to buy this...

Song of the Soul

I had been reading that book for 6 months or more. I read it almost always only to my sleep, but almost every night, chapter by chapter. I read it in my mother tongue. This was eerie experience.I know, from my long discussions with Orthodox Jewish friend, that Kabbalah is out of reach to common people, is out of reach even to very religious people. And he was right. I must confess that I did not understand most of the book... But that was quite surprising experience, because this misunderstanding did not take me away from it. And I diligently was reading it, night by night. So what ? What is this strange experience?

I think that this book gives us some blurry view of the landscape of reality that is hidden from our eyes, until you spent life in Safed and study all these sacred books ...

But at no single sentence of this book I had impression of using Kabbalah to impress public, to try to use it the way people searching for superficial "religiosity" sometimes use it. No red strings, no "living kabbalah system", no celebrities, no DNA analogies ... All these deceitful things invented by people to get attention of naive people - are not in this book.

So - is it really true that I did not understand it at all ?
Well, there are some concepts that are very deep, but I feel I have far recognition of what they mean.

These concepts are related to the fundamental question: What is creation? How creation was possible? How infinite G-d, could create finite universe? These deep philosophical questions form a foundation of Kabbalistic thought. Kabbalah teaches that the Creation is revelation of G-d WILL to create the world. And to create the Universe G-d had to limit himself. The study of nature and the meaning of this "limitation" as something essential for infinity to create finite things is fundamental to Kabbalah.

Now, Kabbalah asks why the world was created imperfect? And, surprisingly, gives a simple answer - because it was created for us, people, so that we could use our free will to improve it, to complete what was lacking.

These simple thoughts have in fact very deep meaning, far deeper than we could expect....

I must admit, these few thoughts are almost all of concepts I could grasp....

Finally, I do not recommend to read this book.
But you can think of what I just said - as quite machiavellian suggestion....

The scanned book is available online at the author website.

"There's no way to play three bars of Mahler without giving your all" - Mahler's 3rd Symphony

Readers of my blog know my fascination with Mahler's music. It started long time ago, with Zubin Mehta and Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performance of Mahler's VII symphony during the first "Festival of Four Cultures" in Lodz, Poland. This time I return to Bernstein's recording of Mahler's Third with Wiener Philharmoniker. Mahler's 3rd is the longest of all his symphonies, and one of the most beautiful. Mahler tried to provide some interpretation for this symphony, and it has a form of "messages" that we might receive: from Mythological God Pan, From Summer, from flowers on the meadow, from animals, Man, Angels and Love....

However, the sung parts of the Symphony, IV and V have amazing texts (corresponding to the messages from Man and Angels). Message from Man uses famous part of Nietzsche, "Thus spoke Zaratustra" called Zarathustra'a Roundeley, while The Message from Angels uses anonymous folk song, part of "The Youth's Magic Horn". Seemingly primitive text about St. Peter's sin and his redemption is surprising after deep and dark Nietzsche strophe. But when you dig deeper you find that all this is about the yearning for etehrnity, about fundamental discord with death, with vanishing life ...

Musically, the best are first and last part (at least to me). You will find a lot of amazing and surprising moments there. But you must immerse yourself into the music to enjoy it.
For me the most amazing was the imitation of bell sounds, first by a boy choir in V part, singing literally Bim-Bam, Bim-Bom and later, the same imitation played by big drums (timpani) in the VI part - finale.

I also found fantastic article about Bernstein Mahler's fascinations.
The article cites Bernstein saying: "There's no way to play three bars of Mahler without giving your all. (...) Every pianissimo is as intense as every forte. . . . Everything has to be done at full intensity."

You can here this words in the bonus to 3rd Symphony in this recording (Leonard Bernstein: The Mahler Symphonies (DVD))

Die Sonne scheidet hinter dem Gebirge

"The sun departs behind the mountains ..."

opens the last part of Gustav Mahler incredible symphony "The Song of the Earth". It is based on famous Chinese poetry of Li Tai-Po. The selection of particular poems made by Mahler reflects his message hidden in the music: the hidden farewell to life. It is quite amazing that he used Chinese poetry to express it - however - for a good reason - Chinese wisdom and its contemplation of earthly beauty along with expression of rootlessness and awareness of human fate is well known. See translations of the songs.

The music itself is almost mystical, the final movement "Der Abschied" can be listen again and again and again....

Last but not least - listening to Leonard Bernstein conducting this symphonic piece is worth waiting long into the night ....

See the song with translations. See the recording I listened to.

We are the threads holding the world together ...

"Weaving the Web" by Tim Berners-Lee is a must-read not only for computer or Internet geeks but for all of us who explore the philosophical layers of modern culture.
The book has two distinctive, though formally indistinguishable parts. The first one describes the web history, since its inception in 1989 and 1990, through the establishment of W3C consortium, till 1997 - the birth of XML.
This is very deep, fascinating and personal account written by the real creator of the Web.

However, the second part is even more interesting - and this is the best part of the book.
It explores the most important, philosophical tenents of the web - ideas that are fundamental, yet not really well known.

Let me mention only few:

• The principle of least power - the basic motivation behind the design of HTML and XML
• Neutralization of the net - the principle of non-biased services on the net
• Free choice and free speech right - realised by the unlimited right to link to everything
• A Universal space - the web can, in principle, hold ANY data and ANY object

Tim Berners-Lee shows the deep social significance of the web when he writes:
"Link by link we build paths of understanding across the web of humanity".

One of the best part of the book is that about Semantic Web - where in simple words, and through simple examples, Tim, explains this amazing idea of "web of data" or "web of meaning".

Even though, we still do not have Semantic Web in action, and we still do not understand why - Tim Berners-Lee enthusiasm, expressed in these chapters, gives us the hope, for the (r)evolution to come soon, and change the landscape of the net ....

For you, a thousand times over

"The Kite Runner" is Khaled Hosseini first novel. Despite its enormous success it is decent and unassertive story of the simple, yet most fundamental human virtues of honour, friendship, faithfulness but also of shame, guilt and remorse.

It is a novel that teaches those simple and basic things that all religions teach; in some sense, teaches also about the importance of G-d in human life - but it is doing so in unobtrusive, I would say, humble way...

It is a story of two boys from Afghanistan. They lived in times of old, free Afghanistan, before Soviet invasion and Taliban regime. Amir, the narrator in the book experiences a kind of lesser acceptance from his father, until he becomes a local hero for his achievement in kite fighting. Hassan, his friend, and the son of Amir's father servant helped Amir in everything, including the kite ride, when Amir won. And for being that helpful, Hassan suffers the attack and abuse from local villain Assef - the attack witnessed by Amir, who, scared by the situation does not help Hassan.... This even leads to the break in their relation, with Amir, full of remorse, but unable to overcome his guilt. When, after many years, he becomes a successful US citizen, he realizes that his sin of his youth, the sin of not helping his best friend, puts a shadow on his life, so he returns to Afghanistan. Not able to receive forgiveness from Hassan, he finds his son Sohrab and saves him from oppression of Talibans, takes him to US and, in a single light smile after years of silence - gets some absolution the sin of his youth...

I write about this story in the shortest possible way, not to spoil it to future readers. The real plot is fascinating with many unexpected turns... However, at every moment of the novel plot, we find incredible human paradoxes intertwined with moments of life. The book is about simple things, simple sins that our life is full of. It shows, what happens to them, when they happen in history - particularly in troubled history of nations.

And it also shows, that until we do not understand that the problems are in us - not in THE OTHER - no reconciliation is possible...

As one poet expressed it: "Learn to love others - they pass away so fast" ...

It also teaches us not to wait with our attempts to receive forgiveness. Sometimes, the person whom you want to forgive you, passes away and you need to ask G-d and his descendents for it...

How hard it may work, hard in the deep, psychological way, was never better described than in "The Kite Runner"...

The greatness of this book, is from the fundamenta message, that the simple facts of our life bear the most significant truths of our life.

Read the passages:

"There is a way to be good again"

"There is no act more wretched than stealing"

"For you, a thousand times over"

"I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night"

Last but not least - the book is also beautifully written. Fantastic imagery of Afghanistan, Pakistan and California are long in my eyes after reading it. Certainly - one of the greatest books of my all life....

See also the interview with author, by Charles Rose.

The another incredible story - this time about men, honour and pride

I knew what I was doing when, just after "A Thousand Splendid Suns" I turned to "The Kite Runner"...

Still reading it, so no review yet. However, I must tell now, that it was quite disturbing to read a number of reviews, trying to say of "A Thousand ..." was better, or "The Kite ..." was better and so on....

People carring such judgments just do not understand what the books are all about, and, I dare to say, do not appreciate Hosseini real genius ....

The incredible story of women hardship

"A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini is a book that easily can be your favorite book of life. It certainly is for me.

The first thought to reveal about the book is that it makes the fantasy and fiction - the unified reality of such enormous realness, that it is hard to believe, during the rearding of the book, that you read another fiction novel.

The book describes the lives of two women in Afganistan in the critical part of its history, between early 1960-ties to early 2003. The destiny and history of the two women is intertwined with the troubled history of the beautiful country. The history that is mosty tragic and miserable, particularly during Taliban reign. However, even if history plays an important role - the book is about human condition - about the difficult and impossible love and friendship, about the greatness of human spirit over the world full of hatred and evil.

In many ways, the most important message we read in this book is that formulated by Victor Frankl: "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." I haven’t seen more powerful scene that illustrates this truth than the scene of the death by public execution of one of the book heroes at the hand of vindictive Talibans...

The book reiterates the fundamental truth - the basic human feelings and behaviors, those of the glorious and of the deplorable significance - are independent of the culture, religion, political system etc. We see there both admiration of traditional humble Islamic values and reproof of their perversion in the culture of Taliban, Mujahideen and similar (like Hamas or Hezbollah) culture of killing and murder. After reading it, you will have more moderate view on the Western-Islam conflict...

Last but not least - the book is also about love. I would say - it is all about love...

The book is also full of incredible nature descriptions - where you have the feeling of being there ....

Final word - it is the book everyone should read.