Johnathan Johnson từ Lakshmikanta Pur, West Bengal, India

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05/19/2024

Dữ liệu người dùng, đánh giá và đề xuất cho sách

Johnathan Johnson Sách lại (10)

2018-12-27 02:30

Danh Nhân Việt Nam Song Ngữ - Xin Mẹ Đừng Lo Thư viện Sách hướng dẫn

Sách được viết bởi Bởi: Điển Dũng

I got a really old edition from the library. It was kind of awesome because the price at the time was 50 cents and that just happened to be exactly what the library was charging for (most) paperbacks. Also, it looks old-tastic. It's a "scholastic library edition," and since there are like eighty billion editions of Pride and Prejudice on this site I just went with an edition with a vaguely reminiscent cover. This isn't really a review, because I haven't even started the book yet. But I sure did buy it. I wish people still indulged this kind of witty dialogue. It never ceases to be amusing. When I read Goffman (a social analyst) my sophomore year in college, I related his discussion of "face" to the way that Lizzy gets embarrassed by her family in Pride and Prejudice. They reflect poorly on her by their rude and unrestrained behavior, which embarrasses her and greatly influences her interactions with Mr. Darcy because her family is detracting from her ability to preserve positive face. Also, re-reading it for a course on British Women Writers Before 1900 brought up how unrealistic the romance really is (a perfect, wealthy man marrying down, not even to the most beautiful of the Bennet sisters). And how it re-enforces bourgeoisie ideals of class (with the attitude of class-climbing being a crude aspiration nevertheless possible, even right, given the nurturing of one's innate high-born tendencies). And I was preoccupied by the idea of how sympathy for Mr. Bennet and Elizabeth is tied to their status as readers. And the way that there's a sort of satire of the pragmatic, stabilizing reality of marriage (which Mrs. Bennet is crude for acknowledging, yet the book kind of vindicates her perspective by having everything work out pretty nicely through marriages. Even against Elizabeth's seemingly romantic and obstinate personality.) Mr. Darcy muses early on, “A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment.” Darcy scorns the habit, but the novel itself vindicates this imaginative leap—he does indeed marry the Miss Elizabeth Bennet whose eyes he is admiring. And the silly Mrs. Bennet who wants a daughter to marry the rich new inhabitant of Netherfield at the novel’s commencement, ultimately gets her wish. Reading, I feel like a friend of Austen’s. I get to share her perspective as an amused outsider to the ironies of Pride and Prejudice. And I know she loved the character of Elizabeth Bennet. My edition's introduction points out that she was Austen's favorite character. I really really like Lizzie while I'm reading her, but upon analyzing the text and trying to think about what makes her likeable, I admit that my fondness fades. She's so impractical and silly and prejudiced. And bitter toward Mr. Darcy. And emotionally out-of-touch. And yet...endearingly so because she's so witty? Or because being out of touch with your emotions is an understandable fault? Or because her banter and romance with Mr. Darcy is so satisfying? I don't know, really. P.S. Sorry that this review is too long. P.P.S. Page 245 (in my edition...) is interesting in relation to the Bennets' marriage (being kind of pathetic and unfulfilling). And pages 49 and 59 have revealing Darcy/Elizabeth moments. That is all. I promise.

2018-12-27 05:30

Hương Vị Của Đất - Văn Lang Dị Sử - Tái bản 03/09/2009 Thư viện Sách hướng dẫn

Sách được viết bởi Bởi: Thiền Sư Nhất Hạnh

Some small (in my eyes) spoilers for those annoyed by such things. I enjoyed the first three of Gulliver's travels, and would give that part of the book a good rating purely on merit of being diverting, though there were several vulgar passages that should (and could) have been omitted. Beyond being simply fun to read, I felt that it was a prime example of good language of surpassing clarity. When I read Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities it took me a few pages to become used to his complicated prose. Once accustomed to his manner of speaking I found that I loved it and his prose is still my favorite of anything I have read, but the prose that Swift employed in writing Gulliver's Travels had a straightforward simplicity that was compelling and refreshing; I liked it. Something I noted was the narrating Gulliver's seeming disinterest in his own plights, triumphs and defeats throughout the book. What I found interesting was that despite the lack of emotion present in the narrative, I felt that I connected with Gulliver as a character quite well, such that I was even irritated and annoyed by his ruined state at the end of the novel. I find it worth mention because I have found in the past that seeing the emotions of a character was what helped me to relate to them the most, but in this case Swift managed it without that, I was intrigued by that. A word about the last of Gulliver's four journeys, which I found to be almost a chore to read, and which further drew my ire because of the changes it made in Gulliver himself. In the final journey I felt that Swift was simply slipping into long discourses on the foibles of humanity. Now, because of the nature of the book as a satire, that is precisely what Swift has been doing for most of the book, but it did not work here in the end, I think largely because he has Gulliver embark upon long, exaggerated (true, but still exaggerated) monologue about the state of things in Europe, whereas in the past he had focused mainly on the places to which Gulliver had traveled, add to that the fact that these monologues were specifically designed and calculated to bring all the worst of humanity to the front, and represent it as all that humanity is, which representation I found brought more displeasure with the author, than it brought reflection upon the faults of humanity. Perhaps my reaction is simply a consequence of my living in this time, where exist all of the same faults under somewhat different forms, rather than living in the time and place from which Swift was drawing his experiences, and perhaps not. I leave it to the individual reader to decide for themselves.

Người đọc Johnathan Johnson từ Lakshmikanta Pur, West Bengal, India

Người dùng coi những cuốn sách này là thú vị nhất trong năm 2017-2018, ban biên tập của cổng thông tin "Thư viện Sách hướng dẫn" khuyến cáo rằng tất cả các độc giả sẽ làm quen với văn học này.