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)