The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“There’s no worse thief than a bad book.”
“Strange thing, time. It weighs most on those who have it least.”
“There was an unspoken prejudice among book-learned people, a secret conviction they all seemed to share, that life as we know it is an imperfect vision of reality, and that only art, like a pair of reading glasses, can correct it.”
“The strong take from the weak, but the smart take from the strong.”
“The greatest violence in the world was against art, against knowledge.”
The Rule of Four is about a manuscript that is about 500 years old and the people that are enthralled with it. The main character is Tom. He is the son of someone who was obsessed with this work and ended up dying in a car crash when Tom was younger. We also have Tom’s friends which include Gil, Charlie, and Paul. Paul has become enamored with this text and spends almost all of his time digging into the secrets. He purposefully became friends with Tom. We follow Tom as he navigates school and the quest to discover the secret of the Hypnerotomachia. He must manage his relationships with the book, girlfriend, and his friends, especially Paul. This work has been around hundreds of years, but no one has been able to figure it out. The group must dodge untrustworthy characters and death. Who will survive? Will the secret finally be revealed? Who will remain friends?
This book has two authors. Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason did a great job of coming up with an engaging and engrossing story. This is the type of story I love. I get to learn about history and cultural things as well as be a part of a kind of treasure hunt. The different pieces of information that are provided gives me a jolt of excitement like when belladonna, Procrustes, and the etymology of sarcophagus are described. There were also several platitudes sprinkled throughout that caught my attention. I know I start these posts with quotes but I also like to sprinkle some throughout the text as well like “never invest yourself in anything so deeply that its failure could cost you your happiness” and “a good friend stands in harm’s way for you the second you ask – but a great friend does it without being asked at all.” It is funny the way it appeared in the book. It is the main character relaying things he learned from his parents. One chapter ends with what his father taught him and the next chapter starts with something his mother said. Another is, “The two hardest things to contemplate in life…are failure and age.” There was a section in the book that discusses the concentration of geniuses in Florence, and that really struck me. I am like that seems like a good premise for a book. Some of the words I came across and took note of were Nilotic, crapulent, autodidact, steganography. and ersatz. Something that bothered me though was how the timelines seemed sort of muddled. It was hard to discern if something happened before or after the main storyline. The details and stories involving girlfriends and school seemed unnecessary. They didn’t add to the story, and felt like sections you had to sludge through to reach the exciting puzzle work. Paul was also sort of annoying and selfish. I also found the ending sort of lacking. It was anti-climatic and boring. No resolution. I wanted the treasure hunt to have a finale. I did fly through this book, somewhat thanks to a snowstorm. This is exactly the type of book to read if you like Dan Brown or art history or literature in general.
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Tag: religion
Egyptian Corruption And Sexy Secrets Surrounding A Single Address
The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“It may happen that you will hate a thing which is better for you.”
The Yacoubian Building is about a residential building in Cairo and the people connected with it. We rotate through different stories focused on one or more of these characters and sometimes they interweave with other storylines. There is a list of main characters in the front of the book, which I found myself utilizing quite a bit. It is told from the 3rd person perspective, and we get to know all that is going on internally and externally. It takes place around the 1990s and there is a lot going on. In this book you will find religion, sex, greed, family, homosexuality, and many other divergent topics. It encompasses a wide array of things and gives us a glimpse into what life might have looked like. It is a real time piece.
Alaa Al Aswany is the author of this novel and he is quite the writer. His detailed descriptions really allow you to paint a vivid image in your head. He has some real talent with this. And it doesn’t go on for days either like Hemingway. Everything he puts down on paper has relevance and allows the reader to get to know the characters in depth. It shows the environment they are living in and their history and motives and why they are the way they are. He can create an amazing sense of place and mood. There is a lot of sex in this book and a lot of describing people in sexual terms. The way the bodies are detailed, the words people use, or the actual sex scenes are numerous. I liked the words he chose to use too. There were just enough words that I had to look up and ones that I loved pronouncing out loud like, abrogate and disputatiousness. I enjoyed how they sounded on my tongue and learning new words. It was sad what people had to go through and how they treated each other. People suffered…”This country doesn’t belong to us, Taha. It belongs to the people who have money.” Unfortunately, this is still true in a lot of ways and places. It really touches on corruption within people and institutions and society. It really showed the worst of people. This had a direct impact on my views of characters. At one point I would be on their side and then later I would totally despise them. One thing I didn’t enjoy was trying to keep track of everyone and where we were in their stories. I had to rely on the list of characters at the front to remember who was who and what was previously revealed about them. This book also talked a lot about religion and it got to be too much for me. I cannot relate at all and I just did not get it. I enjoyed this novel and I think others will as well. It is very well written and it is truly thoughtful. This is exactly the type of book that I would love to look back on for inspiration on writing descriptions.
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A Slicing Piece Of Commentary And Heartfelt Musings On Love
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Knife relays the brutal attack on Salman Rushdie in 2022, the journey afterwards, and the history behind his experience with hatred. It recounts in detail the multiple stabbings, his road to recovery, and the love and support he received from those closest to him as well as from around the world. It is a book about love and survival. The author, Salman Rushdie himself, conveys what he was going through after the release of The Satanic Verses and how it kept going throughout the years culminating with this attack. There is a greater message about religion, violence, and freedom of speech that is presented alongside the minutiae of Salman’s life.
I have not read any of Salman Rushdie’s works before, so this was my introduction and man, can he write. I loved his turn of phrases and how he wrote in such a relatable way. He would write about normal everyday things like using the bathroom or writing or going out to dinner. Each wound/body part that was violated was talked about and each felt like its own epic tale. You would think describing all the medical stuff would be boring but it is not. It is so vivid and real. I loved his use of knife and cutting metaphors as well. He wielded them well such as when “the knife had severed me from my world” and “language, too, was a knife.” He used language in a quotidian way but made it sound beautiful and insightful like describing his eye as “an absence with an immensely powerful presence.” The book had moments of humor and levity interspersed amongst the horror of the attack. “I’m here because of a knife attack, but let’s check the prostate, sure.” The writing was raw and I got emotional at points. Relating the reactions of his family and those that loved him was heartbreaking. Shock and sadness were the ones that showed up in myself most often. References to pop culture like the Mandalorian are sprinkled throughout as well. He focuses on this one extreme event but conveys everyday living while nodding to big-picture life and humanity. Those grandiose topics are brought in seamlessly and tied closely to certain aspects of the story. For example, talking about the best and worst of humanity on display in one single situation or how freedom of speech is under attack. He brings huge topics and distills them beautifully. Salman Rushdie is a storyteller and this came through even in this nonfiction work. I cannot wait to read some of his other work.
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