THE BEST OF MAY

SHAKESPEARE - ROMEO AND JULIET

"One reason I did not like this book is i do not believe in love. They claim to have a lot of love in this book. If, you are into falling in love and standing for your love this is a book for you to read."

"I am not actually a fan of Shakespeare. Not because I don’t like, adore, his works. It’s because I have no idea of it. Like, what was Les Miz about? I really don’t know."


BERGSON - INTRODUCTION TO METAPHYSICS

"Philosophers are people who pick the obvious and easy, discuss them, and end up making them difficult and incomprehensible ... Millions have died, and thousands are still dying, because of philosophers. One lives and grows up in a quiet place, but the philosopher invents and drums into his head concepts like nationhood (contra neighborhood which is the only reality for each individual), love of country (and I'm not referring to country music), father(or mother)land. He has neighbors, but the philosopher expands the concept into countrymen and foreigners, us and them. Everyone is born with a harmless, natural sense of wonder but the philosopher messes things up with conflicting ideas about god or his absence, true and false gods, freedom and determinism, the will of god, heathens and the chosen people, truth, justice, fate and meaninglessness. All these just confuse and make men launch wars with their pointless killings and sufferings, and all the crazy things living species do when they've been discombobulated."


NABOKOV - PALE FIRE

"What was the point of that story? That life sucks? How nice to find out now, that I am trapped in it!! I guess I should not complain, since I once noted that seemed to be the theme of most of my poems, but I think I usually included something about making it better."


SENECA - THYESTES

"'Thyestes' isn't a very hopeful story."


SHAKESPEARE - JULIUS CAESAR

"what so hard about writing in modern English rather then jibberjabber"

"Shakespeare. Call me a Kulturbanause but I have zero interest or will to read anything related. The same for other 'classic' literature, once deemed good by mainstream and repeated over and over. There are exceptions but they’re rare and far between. I believe it has to do with my aversion to anything 'theatrical'. And the fact that, just because someone decided this is world literature doesn’t mean that I will follow the herd and gobble it up like a sheep ... You can follow trends or you can set trends for yourself. So don’t ask me about Shakespeare. I will laugh in your face."

"Et tu Brute? A Roman Caeser speaking French in his dying breath..."


WITTGENSTEIN - PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS

"List or explain one accomplishment by him either from his early or later writings. What do they amount to in the history of anything except for uninteresting erroeneous dialogue and a few quotable (but still insignificant) quotes? Indeed I think I've just described the majority of 'philosophers'."


BENEDICT - PATTERNS OF CULTURE

"What practical good comes from 'studying' completely obvious human traits such as race, ethnicity and gender?"


NABOKOV - LOLITA

"Lolita takes us through the mind of a man who loves young girls. Yes, in that respects it could be construed as disturbing, but listen as the narrator tells us how hard he struggled against his urges.

Then came Lolita...he couldn't resist her, even though he tried. Though it was not entirely his fault, Lolita seduces our poor narrator and then leads him on a twisted adventure where she uses him for her own pleasure and gain. Lolita knows exactly what she's doing as she slowly destroys the narrator."


BAD REVIEWS OF GOOD BOOKS RETURNS, WITH A MORE STABLE SCHEDULE, IN JULY (AFTER MY EXAMS AND THESIS ARE THROUGH WITH)

Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita VI

"For all its contrived hype on its sexuality, the book is not very sexual at all, nor is it exciting."


"Although it is a bit of a creepy action, the old man still portrays the desire of an young man who is trying to ask a girl out."


"Lolita somehow floats above the horrific ravages of protracted sexual abuse, unscathed. She seems to suffer little emotional trauma"


"The stupid arguments about it being art overlook that just because art can be made about something, there is always the question of whether it ought to be made. Lolita should not have been made–Art does not need it. It only illuminates baseness and perversion without also illuminating what is wonderful, charitable, revelatory and compassionate about humans."


"Sorry, but I must disagree with so many of the reviews I see here. We read this for my book club, and, universally, it was hated. Overwrought and just icky. The author tried way too hard to impress with his verbal dexterity. And, the protagonist? Unpleasant, to say the least."


"It’s a fucking rape instruction manual, however burdened with ridiculous flowery prose. Plenty of non-rapists could write such a manual. You could. I could. But Nabokov wrote it, traded on it, fucking LOVED it – so I don’t care much whether he personally raped children."


"Lolita takes us through the mind of a man who loves young girls. Yes, in that respects it could be construed as disturbing, but listen as the narrator tells us how hard he struggled against his urges.

Then came Lolita...he couldn't resist her, even though he tried. Though it was not entirely his fault, Lolita seduces our poor narrator and then leads him on a twisted adventure where she uses him for her own pleasure and gain. Lolita knows exactly what she's doing as she slowly destroys the narrator."


"Well played, Nabokov. Seems to me that Lolita is an excellent hoax created by a member of the literati for the literati. Nabokov effectively wrote a dreadfully boring and unnecessarily verbose 'erotic' novel, mixing in enough fancy vocabulary and literary references to prove he's a smart cookie, and that extra dash of pedophilia/'incest' to make it impossible to dislike the book without seeming dense and prudish.

Welp, guess I'm just a Puritan blockhead. In the afterword to this edition, Nabokov makes a stink about people attempting to 'interpret' the work, and also seems disgruntled with silly readers who, looking to be titillated, find themselves bored in the middle. If a book does not have a theme, an idea, even a character to think about, and it doesn't entertain, then it is utterly without point. Which seems to be the "point" of Lolita--to be without point."


"I also suspect that most people here on goodreads that actually give this book a positive rating either diddn't read it and/or did it for the same reason people buy books just to fill their bookshelfes without ever reading them (or the reason people buy 'modern art'), that is, to look sophisticated. I bet the people tought 'hey, this book is famous, it's world literature, if I don't give it a favorable rating, people will think I'm a yokel!'.
Sure, I may be wrong with that and in some cases someone honestly liked it, but still, I just can't imagine someone actually enjoyed reading that book. I just can't."

Ruth Benedict - Patterns of Culture

"anthropology is worthless."


"Anthropology has become a clearinghouse for anarchists and communists without job skills."


"The work of anthropologists would mean less than nothing to you if you were suddenly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. This science does no one any practical good except the practitioners who glom an easy living off academia. What practical good comes from 'studying' completely obvious human traits such as race, ethnicity and gender?"

Ludwig Wittgenstein - Philosophical Investigations II

"He seems to idle on the same questions over and over again with not much progress, very seldomly really applying his own method to them. Such a pity he had no stamina."


"The later Wittgenstein was a self-satisfied smug git who was trying to be just a little bit too clever ... He should have stayed being a gardener in a monastery and not gone back to philosophy.

I think Wittgenstein is over-rated. He just confuses people by being unclear and then justifies this by claiming to be anti-metaphysical. When people find it hard to understand him, they end up assuming it must be because they are stupid and he was incredibly clever. Maybe it is just because he is unclear, inconsistent and incapable of agreeing with himself."


"List or explain one accomplishment by him either from his early or later writings. What do they amount to in the history of anything except for uninteresting erroeneous dialogue and a few quotable (but still insignificant) quotes? Indeed I think I've just described the majority of 'philosophers'."


"There is no reason, in the world, for an undergrad to ever pick up a Wittgenstein book, much less write a paper about it. None. I actually have to turn away. I am sickened when I read it."


"Wittgenstein is the worthless PBR drinking hipster version of Gilbert Ryle."


"by the way wittgenstein was probably 'mentally retarded' as well"

The Elder Edda

"it seems almost everyone in Iceland is retarded"


"Quick everybody! Lets pretend Iceland is relevant in the world! ROFL ... I support Iceland being a safe haven that is still homogeneous and white and untouched by the world. But the reality of the situation is they are irrelevant and not needed."


"I hate Norse mythology because of big a part fate plays no matter what you or anyone else does the world is screwed."


"Norse mythology is retarded. They believe all their gods are already dead yet at the same time alive. Fuck Ragnarok."

Shakespeare - Julius Caesar II

"To be completely honest, this book is straight butt."


"this book sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! not only is it shakespeare but its a complete rip off! ok so in r&j they both die for COMPLETELY NO REASON. well this ones basically the same. This group of guys feels that Caesers a tyrant so they kill him. then become tyrant like themselves. then there a big battle ... and my teacher made me memorize the freaking friends, romans, countryman speech. which you can be sure did not endear me. shakespear is so like eratic. sometimes he talks forwards somethines he talks backwords. sometimes its uber shakespearian other times its basically normal. the dude can not make up his mind for a writing style!"


"Dear William Shakespeare,
I fucking hate Julius Caesar. If I ever have to read this fucking thing again I’m gonna flip some shit. Fucking fuck."


"I did not enjoy reading this book. The text was extremely difficult to read and the vernacular used by Shakespeare does not translate well into todays language. The story wasnt structured well and it seemed as if the story was rushed and cluttered. Julius Caesar is the king of Rome and eventhough he has many batle victories under his belt, many people believe that he abuses his power and isnt fit for the role he holds.

I rated this book a 2 out of 5 because the text is so difficult to read and the major conflict is solved early on in the story and the rest is just piled on to lengthen the story. The dialogue is dry and the logic of the characters is majorly flawed."


"Oh my holy hell! What the hell is up with Julius Caeser!"


"what so hard about writing in modern English rather then jibberjabber"


"Shakespeare. Call me a Kulturbanause but I have zero interest or will to read anything related. The same for other 'classic' literature, once deemed good by mainstream and repeated over and over. There are exceptions but they’re rare and far between. I believe it has to do with my aversion to anything 'theatrical'. And the fact that, just because someone decided this is world literature doesn’t mean that I will follow the herd and gobble it up like a sheep ... You can follow trends or you can set trends for yourself. So don’t ask me about Shakespeare. I will laugh in your face."


"I never got around to reading Julius Caesar until now, as a 34 year old, a teacher of Shakespeare to HS juniors. And, I'm underwhelmed."


"Et tu Brute? A Roman Caeser speaking French in his dying breath...that alone made this play a good read."


"great job Shakespeare, you just RUINED this quarter!"


"Blah blah blah. Enough already. It was the same petty arguments throughout the whole story. Plus, it's even worse in old English."

Seneca - Thyestes

"'Thyestes' isn't a very hopeful story."


"The plot could have been developed in a much more interesting way, particularly given the recurring breakdown of family relationships among Pelops' descendants. (Examples include Pelops' own relationship with his father, Tantalus, providing the prototype for Thyestes' gruesome meal by attempting to serve up his own children as a banquet for the gods; Agamemnon and Aegisthus; Agamemnon and Clytemnestra; Orestes and Clytemnestra.) Seneca fails completely to do this; he seems insufficiently interested in the reality of his characters, in the psychological effects that such a background would have."


"Why were the sixteenth century dramatists so taken with Seneca? The reasons cannot be because of dramatic merit"


"Vulgar and Unrestrained
As we all know, classical rules of poetry dictate that no violence must be shown on stage, that the protagonist must be admirable except for one fatal flaw, that the declamation must be dignified and poetic. Seneca violates all of these rules, plus many others. His protagonists are nothing but shrieking hysterical fools, and the stage is awash in blood by the end of every play. As for the 'poetry,' it is nonexistent."

Sigmund Freud - Beyond the Pleasure Principle

"If you're able to suspend antipathy for what was surely a cocaine-addicted megalomaniac's attempt to define western civilization in terms of incest and genitals, then this book has something for you."


"It is pretty much every other Freud book/essay/speech all the unsubstantiated ideas, motherfucking and rat infested anal crevices you get in all his works."


"He was obviously high as a kite when he wrote this. Not worth it."

Vladimir Nabokov - Pale Fire II

"I tried very hard to become engrossed with this book, i was looking forward to a challenge, but i just couldn't get over how disjointed the book was. That and the fact that i didn't feel like i could believe any of what Kinbote was writing."


"I hated Pale Fire, because there wasn't a definitive answer to anything, I couldn't figure out the chronology of the story and was left wondering if anything had been accomplished because I was trying to make sense of stuff that didn't make sense to me."


"Not really like his other books, lolita and the defense, it was a bit weird, quickly its about a guy who is publishing his favorite poets final poem posthumously and he writes a commentary which explains the 4 cantos. I have no idea why this is to popular? ... I did like some of the poetry, but I could have done without the explanations. If you love Nabokov you may not like this one."


"I hated Pale Fire. Don’t bother."


"stay away from Nabokov if you haven't already LOL. all his characters seem to be more annoying than all of austen's."


"Whatever you do, don't read Nabokov."


"Nabakov sucks to the point of unreadability"


"What was the point of that story? That life sucks? How nice to find out now, that I am trapped in it!! I guess I should not complain, since I once noted that seemed to be the theme of most of my poems, but I think I usually included something about making it better."

Henri Bergson - Introduction to Metaphysics

"He seems to be saying each moment of time stands on its own, not having duration, and therefore never connecting with the next moment or event in an influential way."


"Boring. Too academic and/or philosophical."


"Philosophers are people who pick the obvious and easy, discuss them, and end up making them difficult and incomprehensible ... Millions have died, and thousands are still dying, because of philosophers. One lives and grows up in a quiet place, but the philosopher invents and drums into his head concepts like nationhood (contra neighborhood which is the only reality for each individual), love of country (and I'm not referring to country music), father(or mother)land. He has neighbors, but the philosopher expands the concept into countrymen and foreigners, us and them. Everyone is born with a harmless, natural sense of wonder but the philosopher messes things up with conflicting ideas about god or his absence, true and false gods, freedom and determinism, the will of god, heathens and the chosen people, truth, justice, fate and meaninglessness. All these just confuse and make men launch wars with their pointless killings and sufferings, and all the crazy things living species do when they've been discombobulated."

Shakespeare - Romeo and Juliet VII

"One reason I did not like this book is i do not believe in love. They claim to have a lot of love in this book. If, you are into falling in love and standing for your love this is a book for you to read."


"I spent almost 10 years trying to read this"


"i lov dis book its about love 4 ever and being together its somthing i would lov too have"


"THIS IS A VERY GOOD BOOK IT JUST TALKS ABOUT LOVE, BATLAS,FITES, BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT IS LOVE I LIKE THE BOOK BECAUSE THEY FITE FOR THERE LOVE THEY ARE ONE TO EACH OTHER ......ECT....."


"i think this story is a complete waste of your time, it shows all the wrong morals. As it is a classic the story line sucks. the only tradgedy that takes place is that someone would write such a horrific story.okay it just stinks."


"Well, here's a story I honastly hate. The whole thing is just about two families who dispise one another for no apparent reason and two utterly idiotic, stupid hormone-driven kids. Romeo couldn't have fallen in love with Juliet! He fell in love with her face and ,probably, bossoms-if she had any, since she was fourteen, for shite's sake! Really,I can only applaud Shakespeare for the manner of saying this sodden fairy-bloody-tale. Well' if he wanted to show how stupid people are sometimes he did one marvelous job. The only character I liked was Mercutio with all that black humor emanating off him. Ugh, even if this is a theatrical masterpiece, let me tell you, the plot's completely fictitious, because two horny teenagers wouldn't die for each other if the only reason they had married was their looks! So, as disrespectful as I am to the great British playwright, Romeo and Juliet, I hate you."


"Awful exhausting to read. They should translate all Shakespeare works into contemporary language. Then it would be more likely that more persons like it."


"this is also the first love story that ended in a tragedy which makes it a good and realistic play/book."


"Most of the world may find this play about two over-sexed and irresponsible teenagers romantic, but I, for one, do not ... as a contemporary reader, I find the whole story silly and irritating."


"I am not actually a fan of Shakespeare. Not because I don’t like, adore, his works. It’s because I have no idea of it. Like, what was Les Miz about? I really don’t know. And even Romeo and Juliet. All I know is it has a tragic ending where both of the characters, main characters, died. Uhuh. Should I consider my self dumb?"

Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness V

"It's about the Congo but never once mentions the Congo?"


"Admittedly, the first time I read it was a struggle. I would have probably only said it was okay. However, I recently re-read it for a post-grad class I was teaching,"


"I'm not a literature student and I want Plain English Campaign to invest in a time machine to go protest outside the author's door when he wrote the book. Well done for making it possible to read whole paragraph of familiar words without getting any of the metaphors."


"I fail to see how this could be a story taking a jab at colonialism."


"Honestly, Conrad must have been a decent story-teller in his time. That being said, reading 'Heart of Darkness' in good ol' 2013 makes me pity the poor saps that had to sit through Marlow's tale. How the poor individuals could get through that task is simply mind-boggling."


"This was a dumb and I don't really have an opinion."


"I got the feeling that there was lots of hidden or not so hidden meanings through out the book. These, I am not a fan of. When reading books for a class, I don't mind having meanings, as long as I don't have to find it myself. I really would not suggest this book. I guess that there could be some meaning in all the symbols, and that I might be able to connect it to my life, but I doubt it."


"There were too many words"


"The writing style is a mess, it was unnecessarily complicated and the writer needs to be beaten half to death with a Syntax book ... This is not a fluid read, so be prepared to go through an experience worse than grating your face with a red hot cheese grater."


"the ending barely has any closure or character development"


"I honestly couldn't keep myself focused for more than 10 seconds while reading it. It was a bore. It didn't help that half of the time I had no idea what was going on. I still barely even know what the story was about."