Luca Marcenaro từ Optina Pustyn', Kaluzhskaya oblast', Russia

ilmarce

04/29/2024

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

Luca Marcenaro Sách lại (10)

2019-04-18 20:30

Dòng Sông Huyền Bí (Tập 15) Thư viện Sách hướng dẫn

Sách được viết bởi Bởi:

There are relative few works of politics and history that can be regarded as great literature. Offhand, I can think of Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, Tacitus, Gibbon, Brazil's Euclides da Cunha -- and now I must add to this list Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, scholar, educator, and one-time President of Argentina. Written in 1845, Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism tells of the civil war that erupted soon after Argentina declared (and won) its independence from Spain. On one side were the gaucho caudillos such as Juan Manuel Rosas and Facundo Quiroga, who fought on the side of the Federales. On the other side were Rivadavia, Paz, and the Unitarios, who wanted a unified Argentina ruled from Buenos Aires and subjected to European influences with regard to commerce, education, and culture. Sarmiento describes this early culture war eloquently: These men [Federales], Spaniards only in their language and in the confused religious notions preserved among them, must be seen, before a right estimate can be made of the indomitable and haughty character which grows out of this struggle of isolated man with untamed nature, of the rational being with the brute. It is necessary to see thyeir visages bristling with beards, their countenances as grave and serious as the Arabs of Asia, to appreciate the pitying scorn with which they look upon the sedentary denizen of the city, who may have read many books, but who cannot overthrow and slay a fuierce bull, who could not provide himself with a horse from the pampas, who has never met a tiger alone, and received him with a dagger in one hand and a poncho rolled up in the other, to be thrust into the animal's mouth, while he transfixes his heart with his dagger If this sounds anything like the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia or the Sendero Luminoso of Peru, it is because both were anti-urban movements. At one time, Facundo Quiroga, a bloody cutthroat who had his military prisoners executed and who robbed the citizens of the cities he conquered, controlled almost all of Northwest Argentina, while his cohots Rosas, Lopez, and Ferre controlled Buenos Aires and the Pampas. It was a bleak time in Argentinean history -- a time virtually unknown outside of South America. You will see glimpses of the war in the writings of Jorge Luis Borges, but only Sarmiento gives all the details: The Argentine Revolutionary War was twofold: 1st, a civilized warfare of the cities against Spain; 2s, a war against the cities on the part of the country chieftains with the view of shaking off all political subjection and satisfying their hatred of civilization. The cities overcame the Spaniards, and were in their turn overcome by the country districts. This is the explanation of the Argentine Revolution, the first shot of which was fired in 1810, and the last is still [as of 1845] to be heard. Fortunately for Argentine history, Quiroga was assassinated and somewhat later Rosas was defeated and hustled into exile. It was only then that Argentina could begin to have the history of a civilized nation -- though it lapsed once again rather badly in the 1970s with the rule of the junta under Videla, Viola, and Galtieri and the "Dirty War" against the montonero guerrillas and their many thousands of sympathizers. But that is another story.

2019-04-18 21:30

Người Về Từ Sao Hỏa Thư viện Sách hướng dẫn

Sách được viết bởi Bởi: Andy Weir

This is one of my favorite books, but it's actually a book I would not recommend to very many people. It's very, very, violent, and it can be gruesome and graphic in its depiction of violence. Some of the violence is sexual in nature--particularly the main villain, Berne, talks about, fantasizes about, and perpetrates rape. There's a lot of offensive stuff, too, including strong language and slurs about gender and sexuality. Some of the above (although thankfully not the sexual violence) is engaged in by our protagonist. Basically, if you think that any of the above will upset you, stay far away from this book and others by this author. All of that makes it sound like a big brainless gore-fest, but it's not. This novel deals heavily with the consequences of violence, told largely from the perspective of a violent and murderous protagonist, Caine. It's actually a well-thought-out adventure story with a decidedly philosophical bent. The setting is pretty cool. It's set in two parallel universes--one is a standard "fantasy" setting in the Tolkien mold (but with a lot more grit and realism), and the other is a dystopian future Earth run by corporations, with a rigidly defined caste system. The corporations of Earth send "actors" to the fantasy setting, "Overworld", to risk their lives in interesting ways. Their adventures get broadcast back to the "studio" on Earth through a brain implant. The protagonist is Hari Michaelson, who plays Earth's favorite character on Overworld, the brutal and murderous assassin Caine. The hook into the story is a somewhat familiar cliche--he wants to retire, but just when he thinks he's out, he gets pulled in for one last job. Essentially he has to rescue his estranged wife Shanna, another actor on Overworld whose link with Earth was severed mid-adventure while she was aiding the resistance against the cruel emperor Ma'elKoth. Now, the damsel in distress thing is definitely a strike against the book, but rest assured that things get more complicated than that. Shanna is a secondary character in this book but she has a rather interesting plot of her own. The main draw of this book is that Hari/Caine, despite being a murderous asshole and not a very nice person, ends up making for a great underdog protagonist. It becomes increasingly clear as the story progresses that forces much larger than Hari are attempting to use him as a pawn, and the ways in which he copes with this prove very interesting and fun to read about. It's a book with problems, but as skeptical as you might be at the outset, by the ends you'll be cheering for Caine with the rest of us.

Người đọc Luca Marcenaro từ Optina Pustyn', Kaluzhskaya oblast', Russia

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.