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Thank you, James! It’s great to hear from readers who have spent more time with Murakami than myself. After reading the first 6 novels and a few short stories here and there, I just couldn’t stay with him.

@@DavoodGozli Totally agree. After the fame of NW, his work became weak. I would suggest Windup bird if you ever do want to read where he picked up again. IQ84? Don't bother. And Kafka, while not his strongest, is a nice tie in to End of the world, which in my mind was one of his best. I am rea reading Pinball as we speak due to your other review I found fascinating and thought provoking. Thanks for your insights!

@@jamesreynolds6195 my pleasure, thank you! I’d also appreciate your quick thoughts on Sputnik Sweetheart, if you have read it-I’m curious about that one, too. And i will keep the Windup Bird’s Chronicles in mind.

@@DavoodGozli It's been years. I never went back to re read it and cannot remember it much if that's a gauge. I think it struck me much like Dance did, which I also found forgettable. I could be totally wrong, but it seemed pulpish compared to Wind/Pinball/Wonderland. Look forward to other reviews, (even Sputnik - who knows I pby missed the point!). Thanks again for your reviews!

Thanks - hope you enjoy the book!

My pleasure-thanks for listening and for your comment!

Thank you for your support!

I’m honoured-thank you.

Thanks! Love your username

Fair enough, my friend. I say things like that on occasion ... Thanks for the reminder.

I put a lot of thought into it. Discuss it with others in the group. Consider various constraints like relevance, significance, and accessibility. We are a generalist group of readers and it’s difficult to get it right, though it happens on occasion.

@@DavoodGozli I am sad to hear that you won't be making as much videos as you used to is everything alright or you just busy with work? Also maybe we can do a live RUclips I would Love to pick you your brain about your new obsession Byung Chul Han!

@TheYoungIdealist Everything is going well, my friend. I’m just busy. Looking forward to catching up with the great work you’ve been doing on your channel. Hope all is well with you.

I’m glad to read this comment from you, because that’s the intention behind selecting this book.

Thanks a lot, Carina! I appreciate your kind words. I am glad to have been “at the right place at the right time” (reading and reviewing this book) to be connected with such thoughtful fellow readers. I didn’t have the stamina to continue reading the NYT’s bestselling works of fiction, but for the few that I did I tried my best to treat them in the same way I treat any other book-seriously and fairly.

Thanks a lot for the lovely testimonial, Patrick! I appreciate it. Your presence and participation greatly enhances our discussions.

Thank you! ;-)

Thank you for your beautiful and sympathetic comment! I am so glad to hear my videos are viewed by such thoughtful individuals who have a self-conscious (artful) relationship with language, experience, and thought. Let me know once your book is published and good luck with the rest of the process.

Thank you too!

Thank you very much, Sarwa! I appreciate your input and the thought on The Idiot (which I haven’t read yet, but would like to). Something else that I appreciate about your comment is the note about discussing literature with others-bringing it into the medium of conversation-and the possible consequences of that. That’s probably why the idea of book clubs appeals to us, because they can add another layer to our experience of the texts. Hope you’re well.

Thank you for writing! Your notes about knowledge, openness, and receptiveness are important. It's interesting how the task of reception is outsourced and externalized-The main contact person doesn't receive directly. "Reception" becomes another job, and whoever is doing that does not really fulfill the main point of the meeting.

@@DavoodGozli yes, my thoughts are that in a group of three, reception is at an optimal level, despite the ‘world of differences’. I can only say that as a practice, it works, even if the third appears unintentionally distracted if things go into lecture modality. Conversation goes ‘let me stop you right there, I am not sure I understand, politeness goes ‘I understand everything’ and it’s good enough to be in the scroll. Of company.

Thank you for your answer. It's strange how literature opens up that space where the peripheral, ignored parts of our experiences-as individuals and collectives-can become visible, examined, and liberated from. Bullying, being bullied, is indeed a recurrent theme in literature. Giving it voice and visibility can be a first step in (hopefully) being free from it and discovering the hidden self that can exist in that freedom.

Concerning rhetoric... Chuck Palahniuk [Beautiful monsters]

Jorge Luis Borges The garden of forking paths.

Authors I enjoy. John Grisham Michael Crichton

Thank you for your comments and for sharing the names. I enjoy the short stories of Borges, though I haven't read anything by Palahniuk, Grisham, or Crichton.

It might be more of an exercise in style. Popular novels are that way for a reason.

I'm very happy you expressed your disagreement. We wouldn't learn without criticism and exploring our disagreements. I think there are different ways a person can write for a general, non-specialist audiences. There is definitely a way to do so without condescending to the audience, and believing that they will always remain in that status. What you allude to is a faith in human growth, which I think influences the work of a writer in positive ways. Also, a minor note: Quite interestingly, you spelled "arm" as "aram", which in my language (and several other languages) means "calming" and "comforting" the readers. That might a task of a writer who addresses a generalist audience, too. Thanks for writing and for your kind remarks.

​@@DavoodGozli Oh my God! You not only read my comment, but replied to it as well. You have no idea how much that means to me. The only intellectual person in my life that took the time to connect with me. I am over the moon right now. I misspelled arm😂 and I am so happy that I did, because.... My name is Lily living in the States originally from Ethiopia.

That’s very kind of you, Lily! It’s a pleasure to meet you. The reason I make videos for RUclips is to connect with others and hear from them (i.e., you). I want to be less like an “intellectual” and more like a “social.” Thanks for replying.

Thank you! I appreciate that.

I was reading The Agony of Eros this afternoon and I had to pause. I said to myself, this man is living in another dimension.

@@abdul_muhsin97 That’s a good one. What was a key takeaway?

"Our contemporary culture of constant comparison (Ver-Gleichen) leaves no room for the negativity of what is atopos. We are constantly comparing one thing to another, thereby flattening them into the Same, precisely because we no longer experience the atopia of the Other." I had to spend 10-15 minutes deciphering what Han was trying to say. When I did, it was quite poetic.

You are very welcome!

Thanks for sharing your perspective. I think I am in general agreement with your points about the book.

Absolutely! The active, ongoing repression of philosophy by bad science might also be a real thing.

To your point concerning philosophers... what if before modernity, some people with autism were just called philosophers? It really makes you wonder. What if the driving force behind language evolution was the insights garnered by those who felt outside of the nuclear social order, and thus constructed their own explanations for things. Not to say that they were always right...

@@Robert_McGarry_Poems Very interesting point. Hopefully the philosophical insights could stand on their own merit, and be defended regardless of the means by which they were achieved (biological anomaly, sociological contingencies, psychological conditions). I agree with your general sentiment regarding the center/periphery distinction and the general idea that generative insights come from the periphery of the social order.

I fought wild fire for years. I would say that you both need to broadcast and build rapport. The morning weather briefing and the after action review, as minimally involved as they might have been, were probably two of the most important aspects of grounding a routine. That automatically makes it easier for people to buy in on their own terms.

I had the pleasure of working with international exchange fire crews from Australia once. They were trained to walk on flat ground forever. In fact, they have soft bodied flat bottomed boots, no heel. Here, in Oregon, we are trained to hike up and down the cascades and rockies. But generally, don't go very far. Our boots are very rigid and have at least an inch of heel. Fire still burns the same way. Thanks for humoring me. P.S. it just so happens that a New Zealand crew was there at the same time... that was fun to watch.

Thanks for watching and for your wonderful comment! :)

Thanks for listening! I think you’re right. This theme is especially picked up in Harry Frankfurt’s short and sweet book “On Bullshit.” I hope I can live up to the idea of the beginner’s mindset.

I wonder, is the gaze instilled in us or natural?

30:20 The meta host. The self-aware emboldener of the subject. Genius observation, it's not just for journalists.

I think the capacity to develop a sense for the gaze is probably natural in us, but the particular form it takes is probably a process of inculturation, which is why the feeling and qualities of the gaze is different in different people.

@@Robert_McGarry_Poems Thanks for listening :)

@@DavoodGozli Curiosity must be one of them...

Thanks a lot, Cadell!

The pleasure is all mine, Rahul! Looking forward to talking with you again.

Wonderful. 😊

Thanks for your comment and for raising an interesting question. Could it be that a sustained interest in the novel is accompanied by a surge of RUclips participation in book discussions? I'm not sure. My introduction to this book was through Azar Nafisi's The Republic of Imagination, in which the final chapter is devoted to Baldwin.

That's an excellent comparison with The Stranger. I think Camus grew out of that apathy in later works, perhaps as a result of his engagement with politics and international relations. If you read, for example, his collection of short stories (Exile and the Kingdom) you will find characters that are intensely moved with passion and a sense of meaning.

Yes, we can certainly take the narrator at his words. But doing so raises a lot of questions for some readers (myself included) which is why we might be inclined to consider the deeper layers of his thoughts, actions, or even his unconscious desire. Regardless, all we have is still the words on the page… the rest is our own play, our choices and speculations. For my part I don’t take my own interpretations too seriously, while at the same time (to the extent that I take them seriously) I try to be responsible for them, and not put it all on Murakami. Thanks for your comment! :)

@@DavoodGozli I agree with everything you said here Dr. Davood. Thank you for replying back to me! Cheers!

Glad you enjoyed it!

@@atxmaps thanks for your comment! You’re extending the topic in a very interesting dimension, not necessarily what Han covers in the book but relevant. Namely the possibility of technowarfare decreasing actual encounter with the enemy, and helping the construction of tribalist caricatures.

We have different definitions of criticism - thanks for your comment.

@@ALTHEGREAT101 thanks for listening and for your lovely comment. I relate to your note on optimism and the youthful reading of text that is tacitly formed (directed) by an optimism that of which one becomes aware only years later. But I hope optimism, and even heroism, itself can go through transformations (through a poetics of optimism) without being totally lost. All the best from Toronto.

That’s a very interesting statement, especially in light of what Han discusses in “What Is Power?” We might be tempted to generalize your statement about academics, and extend it to anyone who identifies strongly with their organization or institution. They don’t experience power as violence, but simply as mediated action.

I don’t disagree with you.

Thank you for your kind note and observations. The translation of this work was good, but perhaps not as energetic as the ones done by Erik Butler or Wieland Hoban. If you tell me which books you have already read by Han I could better respond with regard to recommending this book. Based on your description, I am also inclined to suggest Alice Miller’s work (The Drama of the Gifted Child), which impacted me more deeply than Han’s work on the topic of aggression to oneself.

@@DavoodGozli Thanks. I've read 'Agony of Eros', 'Saving Beauty', 'Transparency Society', 'Expulsion of the Other', 'Crisis of Narration', 'Philosophy of Zen', 'Absence', 'Shanzai', 'Vita Contempletiva', 'Scent of Time', 'Palliative Society', 'Capitalism and the Death Drive', and most recently 'What is Power'. Ouf! So kind of a obsession I guess more than merely liking his work... Probably I am better off re-reading some of them, which why I have been hesitating over 'Topology of Violence', but something about it just looks appealing for some reason. Probably it's just the orange cover! ... That Alice Miller one does look really good. Thanks for the recommendation. Perhaps you can re-view it (or already have?). Or did you ever consider to re-view some of the other books in the 'Untimely Meditations' series. I never read any, but some of them look interesting : )

Wow! You have read a lot. If it’s Han’s own ideas that motivate your continued reading, then I suspect you won’t encounter much new material in Topology of Violence. But I may be wrong. Sometimes an old idea comes to life when it is encountered in a new context or within a different discussion. I might review Alice Miller’s book(s) later-it might come across as self-helpy. There are too many ideas when it comes to this RUclips channel, but there isn’t much time to execute them.

@@DavoodGozli It must be hard, but you are doing great, I like your channel a lot. Whatever you decide to do, I am sure your thoughts will be interesting. Yes, true sometimes it can help to read things in slightly different context. I think Han's idea about too much positivity and how it can lead us to depression and attacking ourselves is an interesting one; similar perhaps to the Lacanian/Zizekian idea that the superego tortures us with the imperative to 'Enjoy!'. It seems to explain a lot. It seems almost impossible to get out of that lived reality though. Based on what you have said in video and comments, I imagine that there is not too much different in the Topology of Violence, that is not already in Transparency/Palliative Society and Expulsion of the Other. But I might grab it anyway, I'll see : )

In thinking about your concern about “getting out,” I am reminded of what Alice Miller writes. She says we need to witnesses in our path to healing… one is a therapist and the other is the body. I agree with her regarding the body, though I think the therapist may be substituted by a friend or a social circle.