Book on Fire

Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451

Imagine a world where firemen do not put out fire, but start it, and what they burn is books. And yet, "there must be something in books, things we can't imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don't stay for nothing." For those who cherish literature, this is IT, the ultimate ode to books. Fahrenheit 451 has an orwellian mood mixed with blazing flames. I'm not sure the emotion is there, maybe I was disconnected when I was reading it. Still, it is a must-read. Can't wait to see the movie. Oh and my favorite quote is (a small caprice of mine) : "The sun burnt every day. It burnt Time. The world rushed in a circle and turned on its axis and time was busy burning the years and the people anyway, without any help from him. So if he burnt things with the firemen and the sun burnt Time, that meant that everything burnt!"

शांति or Peace

Hermann Hesse: Siddhartha

The river was mocking him... the sage, the sinner, the holy Siddhartha. Much to learn from this book if the right lessons are drawn. Pay attention, it can be tricky, for wisdom cannot be imparted but it is found in the least expected places. And don't search a lot, because the harder you search, the less you find. So is it a manual for soul enlightenment? Not really. To me, it is more like someone telling me to abandon my caprices, and to stop thinking I need things to be happy. And there are no doctrines in life to be a better person, supposing that known doctrines aim at making their adepts better people (we seem to have forgotten this while we are immersed in our own blinding beliefs). The secret is to get out of the vicious circle and go upwards, and just flow. How hard can it be? Well, the word is nirvana. And the young Siddhartha embarks on a long and weary journey to find this place. But to reach inner peace, one has to stumble, sin and love, experience sorrow and disillusionment, one has to be everything, the tree, the thief, the rock. Let go, feel the unity and just disappear. 

Touch of Silk

Alessandro Baricco: Silk

 In 1861, Flaubert was writing Salammbô, electrical light was still a hypothesis and Abraham Lincoln was fighting a war with no end in sight at the other end of the ocean. Hervé Joncour was 32 years old. He bought and sold silkworms. The whole village depended on the thriving silk trade, until an epidemic of silkworm diseases caused production to fall, which led Hervé to go to Japan, a faraway island that looks "invisible", with one purpose in mind, smuggling. But what Hervé does not know is that fate is hiding him un-oriental gems in the empire of the sun. Baricco can tell a beautiful story with not so many words, leaving the reader mesmerized and reminding us once again that what we hopelessly looked for at the other end of the world was in front of our eyes all along. Not quite the breakthrough, but the story just flows effortlessly, almost like "nothing" between our hands.

Mata el vil

Enrique Vila-Matas: La asesina ilustrada

I started reading under the impression that this was a good book, as Enrique Vila-Matas referred to it (almost endlessly) in Paris no se acaba nunca". I managed to hold my breath and try to appreciate the originality of a book that kills its readers. Then it all fell apart. What started out as a novice idea turned into a boring and almost nightmarish twist of events. As much as I enjoyed reading "Paris no se acaba nunca", I just wanted this one to be done with. One point for originality, zero for content.

Hegemonic I

Antonio Tabucchi:  Pereira Maintains

I maintain that this is a heart-warming story, to say the least. I took an instant liking to the main character, Pereira, an old journalist with a weak heart and who struggles to forget the past, his dead wife, and his good old days in Coimbra. Set in Lisboa, 1938, under the dictatorship of Salazar, Pereira's life is turned upside down upon meeting the young and wild Monteiro Rossi and his beautiful lady Marta. What happens next is beyond Pereira's grasp, his old safe ways are no longer valid, he needs to change his point of view. Most importantly, he needs to stop talking to his dead wife's portrait and stop running away from what's happening around him, ergo, the cruel censorship that weighs upon his career. I can picture the fat and lazy Pereira sipping his cold sweet lemonade, against the wish of his cardiologist, the same doctor that suggests that the soul is not undivided, but made out of many facets, each one erupting when need be. I maintain that maybe the most exciting part of the book is seeing Pereira's "hegemonic I" unfold.

Lecturas de Madrid

- Alan Watts: Tao: The Watercourse Way
- Amin Maalouf: Le dérèglement du monde
- Amin Maalouf: Identités meurtrières
- Samuel Beckett: En attendant Godot
- Enrique Vila-Matas: Paris no se acaba nunca
- Ryszard Kapuscinski: Ebano
- Franz Kafka: La metamorfosis
- Alessandro Baricco: Novecientos
- Jack Kerouack: On the Road
- Enrique Vila-Matas: La asesina ilustrada
- Antonio Tabucchi: Sostiene Pereira
- Alessandro Baricco: Seda
- Hermann Hesse: Siddhartha
- Albert Camus: La chute
- Frédéric Beigbeder: 99 francs
- Jean-Michel Guenassia: Le club des incorrigibles optimistes
- J. M. Coetzee: Disgrace
- Patrick Süskind: The Pigeon
- Thomas Bernhard: The Loser
- Michel Houellebecq: La carte et le territoire
- J.D. Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye
- Sylvain Tesson: Dans les forêts de Sibérie
- Agota Kristof: Le grand cahier
- William S. Burroughs: Naked Lunch
- Ismail Kadaré: Il a fallu ce deuil pour se retrouver : journal de la guerre du Kosovo
- Atiq Rahimi: Earth and Ashes
- Mark Leyner: My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist
- David Foster Wallace: Infinite Jest