This book seems to have caused great offence - due either to its cover or its content, or both. I'm neither a Hindu nor Indian so I've no idea whether or not the cover is offensive. However, the UK version appears different to the US one, which gives rise to the question: did anyone bother to check before it was published in the US?
Skipping past the issue of the cover, what of the content? Well, I thought that there was little in the book which taught me anything more about India than I'd read elsewhere (for example by Mark Tully and William Dalrymple). Thus once again you get a description of the Kumbh Mela, a trip to Kashmir, visits to ashrams - pretty much the usual stuff. The… Read more
"The Insulted and Injured" is , to say the least, not one of Dostoyevsky's better efforts. The struggling writer, Vanya, tells of the tangled story of two squabbling families and how Alyosha's love for Natasha fuels that strife further. Alyosha cannot decide between Natasha and the wealthy Katya, whilst his father Prince Valkovsky tries manoeuvre him towards the wealthy Katya. There's also a sub-plot involving the waif Nellie and Vanya.
It's all pretty familiar stuff, and as another reviewer commented, has a curiously Dickensian feel about it: Nellie and Little Nell - too close to be pure coincidence? The downside of all this is that the novel is full of two-dimensional… Read more
"The Rebel" is really an extended essay by Camus concerning the rejection of religion as a basis for political and social legitimacy in the West, and the consequences of that rejection.
Camus examines the reasons for rebellion - socio-economic and political injustices could no longer be explained by reference to God's will. If such injustices pertain, then how can God be "just"? Therefore does God exist? Camus then goes on to examine, essentially, what a mess has been created by the attempts to replace deism with some other form of over-arching belief: from the exaltation of rationalism in the French Revolution, the primacy of the law, romantic Socialism, Communism,… Read more
