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What a great review. THankyou so much. I can't wait to read this!

Life is better with Clarice! So glad you enjoy this amazing author. Agua viva is also life-changing in my experience but I don’t know how this can work in english hahaha Good luck!

Just finished writing my final diploma paper (as an arab person) on this book right now and i really loved your point about being invited to not see it as allegory! I think thats such a big part of this book - the mysticisms, the ‘magical’ characters and their abilities(speak rifaa’s demon exorcism or the snake charming etc) being so contrasted by the very gritty realness of the everyday lives of the characters there, a bit like the author told us to come into a big mansion filled with immensely cool and fun stuff but then told us to not touch them, because they will disappear if we do so. And you are right about the translation it is done very poorly in my opinion and most of the ‘big’ terms were very liberally translated by both philip stewart and theroux(the two translators). The gangsters you were referring to were originally called ‘futuwwas’ and used to be an actual problem in esp medieval cairo doing exactly what they did in the book. Strongly recommend reading up on it, its rly fascinating. And the names of the characters actually also mean sth. Gebelawi for example translates to ‘strong mountain’ while rifaa translates to the ‘the one who rises’ or the last character arafa (i think in arablish lol) means ‘to know’. Theres a lot more which didnt get picked up by the translators at all sadly. And i definitely saw myself in arafa’s story a lot more personally, his personality very much captures the not-yet broken spirit of young university arab people trying to make sense of the political state we are in. Thanks for your video, it gave me a lot to think about!

I have the read the second part a long time ago, so I cannot recall everything clearly but this second book brought Rizal probably more in troubles than the first one. It is set 13 years later and is definitely more radical. I have read it in French and the title was translated in « revolution in the Philippines ». I also had some troubles getting into the story, not only because of the style, but probably because as in many satires, people and events are often one dimensional. However I am glad I have read it and it was a great testimony (and manifesto) from a moment in the History of the Philippines and those kind of books are also important.

Another great video. All three books look good but I just ordered the Croatian Tales book.

I could be wrong, but sometimes, I think, it’s the translation’s fault that a book doesn’t carry the same depth of the story as it does in its original language.

Glad I found your channel! Not many people you can share thoughts with on some of these obscure literary works.

Well done, sir.

I wonder if you’d consider a book recommendation from me, a stranger thousands of miles away. If you would, I highly recommend I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti. Excellent Palestinian literature, rich storytelling mixed with biography. And I've never liked biography.

Thanks for sharing. Naguib Mahfouz surely is an icon in Egyptian literature. He was a modest too, he'd set in the same coffee shop continually, people would easily meet him and talk to him (before the incident).

The Bible Project did a good series in their podcast on the Wisdom Literature books of the Bible in 2016, including a 3 episode look at Job. If you're interested in a Christian perspective, I would suggest checking it out!

When is the next video coming on one of my favorite books by Mann.

Nice review brother

I have that same 10 volume set, and it has been hanging out because I have not yet gathered the muster to read them all. I wonder if there are audio versions of those?

Please do mahabharata next. By c rajagopalachari

Enjoyed your break down man! Really easy to follow your reasoning and i can really see you enjoyed the book

There are so many truly excellent commentaries and resources available for the book of Job, as there are I suppose for every biblical book but this one is one of my own specialized interests. I would highly recommend, for instance, David Clines' magisterial three volume commentary; it really is just second to none.

It was not unusual at the time to set one’s story in a foreign land/different time and the travelling hero had been the topic of a very famous French novel of the 17th century ‘The Adventures of Telemachus’. Plus the exotic setting was to the taste of the time, which was really interested in foreign cultures and civilisations. There is also another reason that has been used before and will be used at least until the 20th (Alamut) at least in Europe (I cannot speak for other continents), namely to avoid censorship and/or the ire of the monarch/leader if your critic was too strong. You could simply say: those scandalous behaviours or ideas are not mine nor from our countrymen, those are foreigners or it happened 300 years ago etc… I am glad you enjoyed a book from my country and I really enjoy your videos and find your reflexions very interesting. Greetings from France

Nice video, definetly gonna read this book!!! (if Amazon doesn't keep denying my god damn order)

When are you reading something from India. Please read mahabharata by c rajagopalachari

Awesome book, Awesome edition! I have read this edition too.

❤😊

Ehy Mike thanks for the updates through your reading journey as usual. If you want to pick up something written by Coetzee I highly suggest you to try his essays instead if his fictional works. I was very impressed by them (especually because they tend to be about literature). Can't wait for the I, The Supreme video!

Ty for making a video to make a simple review and analysis of this book. I picked this novel to present for my school projects and u helped so much!

just finished the door now definitely gonna pick up the true deceiver next thanks for the rec!!

With all due respect, please read South African authors. The nation is a treasure trove of great writing! I did not like, quite harshly, Cry the Beloved Country. Yawn! But the same author’s Too Late the Phalarope broke my heart and blew me away! You HAVE to read Coetzee. Waiting for the Barbarians is my rec. to you. Nadine Gordimer’s stories are sublime. Also consider Damon Galgut or Zoe Wicomb.

Machado wrote "The Looking Mirror" the year after he wrote Bras Cubas, it's one of his 'realist' short stories, I think you'll like it.

I'm really glad I found your video. I'm going to read this book for my Master's Degree Thesis and you confimed what I've already imagined about it 😊

“Philosopher or Dog” and “Epitaph of a Small Winner”…….. my well-worn often read treasures of Machado de Assis. Thank you Mike, as always. Miss Jenny

Try Dom Casmurro. It is my favorite Machado and I think you will like it as well.

Hi mike! I've been wanting to read quincas borba for a long time. would you recommend it? Memoirs of bras Cuba has been a life-changing reading for me. Thanks. Have a Nice day. 

Is this your favorite from your "reading the world" challenge? And, yes, i love books that explore faith and esp those books that focus on pain and suffering and how faith figures in. Absolutely fascinating stuff!

I have been curious about this book for literally years now. And, btw, i feel exactly as you do about books written after 2000! I have never heard another person say that and i always thought of myself as a book snob bc of this but you have made me feel less alone!😅 This review was so amazing that I finally placed an order!

Very cool - thanks for sharing. Oddly fitting the connection of nourishment relating to books.

Interesting video! I hope you can find a good book for Nepal! Also I noticed you haven't read anything for Estonia! Do you have any idea which book you will read? "The man who spoke snakish" is one I heard is amazing from many Estonians in Estonia. It's post-2000s, but to me it seems really interesting!

I am currently reading Palace Walk, an excellent portrait of Egyptian Arab culture and Islam. Do you work at Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary?

Postmodernism began with Laurence Sterne, and you should care, because Tristram Shandy is the best novel ever written. And of course, the periodization of literature is more or less nonsense. Have you played the Total War video games?

If you are going to read "Solenoid", read first "White Noise" by Don DeLillo, and maybe "Lanark" by Alasdair Gray. The last third of "White Noise" is full of references to "Solenoid" (actually vice versa). "Lanark" is using a similar concept as "Solenoid", and I would say that it probably influenced Cărtărescu. Likewise, Hyperspace by Michio Kaku probably most influenced "Solenoid". If you like Thomas Pynchon you will probably also like "Solenoid".

I think a lot of these books being so similar reflects just a broader trend of English language publishing's approach to translating authors. The fact that so many of them are emigrants is probably connected to how they get translated in the first place. You can probably make more opportunities and meet translators if you're traveling or living abroad. Grey Bees is all right but not a piece of art I think you're missing out on. The writing style is definitely simple and understated, but I do think that matches who the character is fwiw

I found it recently in a thrift store and I had heard about it, so I decided to pick it up. Truly loved it. Plenty of little moments that will sit with me. Like when Peter is talking to the local chemist in a casual way about basically how he might not be there when his wife may have to euthanize baby Jennifer.

This is one of those essential books that I've been thinking about reading for years, but always end up buying and reading others instead. I hope to change this in 2025.

Big fan of his Latin--other than his stories of course.

I would definitely take Danilo Kiš for Serbia. Do you know that Andrić was born as a Croat, in a Catholic family. But considering the language in which he wrote, and the fact that he later declared himself a Serb/Yugoslav, I think you attributed him correctly.

What did you feel when you read Agua Viva?

Do you know why Canetti won the Nobel Prize? Well, he was a great writer. But how he won the Nobel Prize. Well, that's a fun story. Auto-da-Fe is one of the books that most influenced Umberto Eco when he was writing his novel The Name of the Rose. Members of the Nobel Committee noticed this, and guess what, Canetti won the Nobel Prize the following year. So if you haven't read The Name of the Rose, I recommend that you read it. You'll have fun, trust me. There is also another excellent novel inspired by Auto-da-Fe. It is The Elegance of the Hedgehog (L'Élégance du hérisson) by Muriel Barbery. It is an optimistic reinterpretation of Canetti's novel. Of course, I'm not the first to notice this, but it's like a secret only for those familiar with literature, and no one openly talks about it. For example, in the novel Angosta by the Colombian writer Héctor Abad Faciolince, you can find an allusion to the connection between those two novels.

kincaid is okay- dont know the other stuff but trust your gut on the specific works not grabbing you- at the same time i would urge you not to neglect a whole national literature based on one book, and i know you wont- i know in particular some great georgian literature (knight and panther skill, etc) and bet it would be easy to get good recommendations for ecuador, etc. In particular there beyond fatigue there are regions we get tempted to lump - but while anglophone african lit seems less diverse to me than francophone, that's because i studied french and livedin west africa - so like lesser antilles, kric krac is worlds away from oumos - or arabic lit gibran versus mahfouz saves me from lumping it too much but i admit i don't know the diversity of middle easter lit for example...

This book sounds amazing!

Fantastic! Definitely going on my TBR.

This sounds terrific. I look forward to reading it. Thanks for sharing.

Out of interest, had many/all of these rejected books won prizes? Re Georgia, perhaps take a look at Jim's Books Reading and Stuff, he's based in Georgia and covers its fiction.