A great book. A lost generation as the previous pillars of society, marriage, class, religion and patriotism were all becoming less important, had less belief and trust in them. What was left was friendship, hedonism, your personal art (eg being a writer), for some, your career. Hemingway builds on this with some fantastic dicotomy. Jake being the centre of the friendship group of hedonist people but not being able to consummate it. For Brett, the most hedonistic character in the book, she has the possible way out of that hedonistic lifestyle, Jake, dangled in front of her (no pun intended) and yet he has the physical flaw that precludes him. She feels that this is a cruel curse on her as her true love died in the war and she swore not to love again. Having fallen in love again, the curse was that it could not be consummated. One of best premises for a book I have ever heard. The sun also rises is a pun on Jake's impotence. Best wishes to you and your channel.
You mentioned that you didn't like the "joke" of Salo's message. I wonder if it's that simple. Perhaps the message was a "Turing test" for Salo, and it was literally a greeting for him into the world of free will? Perhaps it was intended for the humans to read, an official no behind-the-scenes message from the aliens afar? I'm not too familiar with Vonnegut's work, but to imagine this as just a joke feels like a shallow read. Please, let me know what you think!
Liu’s remembrance of time trilogy wasmy introduction to sci-fi, I’ve never been a big fan of reading the genre but since picking up the three body problem a few weeks ago I’ve been binging the series and just finished the remembrance of time as well today. I am honestly in love with this book! At first i found myself getting a bit bored but when Tianming received his mission to become a seeker I let go of all my expectations and started thinking of it as an unrelated story with some connections to the original, I thought it was very fun and comforting to see everything resolved and come full circle regardless of it’s non-canon nature. I hope that more fans of the series give it a shot even though it seems a lot of people online have negative opinions on the book!! Now to wait until my copy of ball lightning comes in the mail so I can get as much out of this universe as possible lmao
What a thoughtful discussion! Thanks, Lucas. I am currently obsessed with Addie’s chapter, too. I’m so glad to see you back! Light in August is fabulous!
I'm in love with the title. As far as the content, I would suggest people who think work like this is pretentious, to, themselves, attempt making great works. I think only in attempting a spiritual or artistic greatness, do people understand the surreal pulls and pushes that happen in that strife. Pretentiousness is a word we often use to defend our own intellect against being challenged. If you believe in the soul, then I think writing like this will strike well with the reader. Sadly, we live in an era where the soul doesn't even have meaning for most, so a book about the pursuit of one's soul may fall flat for many.
I've had authors directly message me to personally say "fuck you" that were more respectful to me than this pontification on the moral degradation of the day and my lack of intellectual curiosity. I choose to believe this was written as constructive feedback, but all you've done is judge most people, myself included, who don't care about "the soul". What am I supposed to actually learn from you insulting most people? What's constructive about that? What you've written reads as such: Funny title. If you think it's so bad try making art yourself. You just don't like this book because you're stupid just like most people. Most people are too stupid to understand art, unlike me who understands. I believe you meant well, to be honest. I also believe you don't actually mean what I wrote above. However, your comment doesn't strike well with me for any reason at all. In fact, my honest reaction to this is that you strike me as pompous(dare I say...pretentious???).
@@bitsoflit I apologize for making the mistake of assuming more people than yourself would see my comment, thus addressing a vague majority, which was a way of giving you the benefit of the doubt, despite your embarrassing commentary on the novel. Your ability to take things personally is incredible. To the point that you have to re-word something that is already written, to fit your argument, even taking my initial compliment down a notch. "You're full of shit" That's all you had to say, instead of us both doing creative writing assignments posing as an internet argument. Why are you so bothered by a polite critique of you insulting a great work? Calling Joyce pretentious is low-hanging fruit, in a world where fewer and fewer people are reading important work like this. It's a lazy critique to call anything pretentious really, especially when the work ended up being so well-received over time. Be more specific. I didn't mean well, or unwell, it was simply a critique of a critique. Nothing personal, seeing as I don't know who you are. I'm not thinking about you & your entire self while I'm writing the comment, if you can imagine that. Also, I couldn't be more clear in that I'm critiquing our era, as I've already said in this comment and the first, in that people are believing less and less in the soul. You misreading that as a personal slight against you is your own inner victim getting in the way of your reading comprehension. If you think I'm being cynical to suggest less and less people care about "the soul" then give me the number to your dealer, please. Maybe, that's why the book didn't sit well with you, if you can truly argue it's an offense to claim what is clear as day. Reading levels of nations are public information. Save the response, Good luck on the Tube. - ur daddy J.J.
I'll be sure to get this book. Recently got the book "Breadwinner" for someone - both book & movie which probably has some similarity to Persepolis or at least sounds like it might. Have you read Breadwinner? 🍞
@@bitsoflit its about an 11 yr old Afghan girl who helps her father who works as a letter reader at the market. Customers who are illiterate pay for his services to have documents read aloud to them. Her father (secretly) teaches her how to read, and she too is literate. However one day her father gets arrested by the Taliban. As females are not allowed to leave the house, there is nobody to earn money for the family. They cannot even step out of their house to fetch water without a male escort which they no longer have. They begin to run out of food. So the Afghan girl cuts her hair and disguises herself as a boy. She tries to carry on her father's job of being a letter reader 📜at the market to help support the family 💰. Hence the name of the book -- Breadwinner. 🍞 It was made into an excellent animated movie 🎥 which you should watch as well.
I heard a theory that the red things in NightFlyers is the red comet from ASOIAF or Game of Thrones and that it is the reason why Missandra gave birth to a Shadow and how Dany wasn’t burned by the flames at Drogo’s funeral
Historically it's not even a question that science as we know it today is a Western invention. You are absolutely wrong to be offended or assume it's racial about the "Western minority," and scientific advancement. That is not the case. I don't dare speculate a cause because you just get called a racist no matter what you say. For whatever reason, whether cultural, economic, educational, who knows, almost all important innovation and discovery comes from the West. Asia publishes a lot, but has a problem with fraud. Even in Western research 80% of all published papers can't be replicated in contemporary published papers. If your access to science is through the filter of popularizers, and mass media it might seem like there's all kinds of advances coming from all over the world. That's not the case.
I happened to stumble upon your Liu Cixin content by chance, and I have to say that, in this video, your voice and pace is ASMR gold. Cheers from Sweden! 🇸🇪
Hi! Greetings from Chinese reading program "Reading on the Island", which has been produced and broadcasted for two seasons and is currently preparing for the third season. We really admire your insights on Yu Hua's "The Seventh Day". Our program invites top Chinese authors like Yu Hua, Su Tong, and Xi Chuan to read, travel, and share on an island. It is popular globally. For the coming season, we're taking "Reading on the Island" to Crete, Greece. We will have a fan meeting with Yu Hua, Su Tong, Xi Chuan and other celebrities. The meeting will be held on 30th to 31st August in Crete,Greece. We’d love to invite some international fans to share their thoughts on the meeting. If you are interested in our program, we will be really happy to receive your reply. Then we will arrange a video conference to discuss the following specific details with you. Considering that you are not in Greece, we will discuss the solution for the travel expenses to Greece based on your confirmation of participation on the conference. For more, please feel free to contact us. Thank you for your support! Best regards, Production Team of "Reading on the Island"
Am reading it at the moment and I love the translation! It has a wonderful flow that really transports me into a realm where time and space hold different meaning :D But I can only read 1-2 pages at a time for some reason. Thanks for your video :)
11:28 - I haven’t yet ready the book, but from your summary it appears that he sought justice for the crimes he committed against himself.. ie.. because he was apathetic to what the Nazi’s were doing and for which he had been apathetic over!
Yes you are complete right! However, I can't help but think this is such an extreme case of being apathetic that I think this doesn't work at all for me.
5:37 - Stalin & Hitler had a Soviet-German friendship pact signed in 1939. Heck, Stalin began removing Jews quietly (& fired a Jew who was in a high position w/in the Soviet govmt (Maxim Litvinov) over his disagreement of Stalin growing friendship w/ Hitler, as well as to make Hitler happy & more trusting in agreeing to the pact).. Stalin also, (beside the above year & a half pact), had admiration for Hitler in many ways, as did Hitler for Stalin. Neither fully trusted the other nor underestimated (well, Stalin did eventually, believing there was no way Hitler would be so stupid as to start another war campaign while still fighting the 1st (fight major wars on 2 fronts)-> though this error in judgement is understandable, especially due to Stalin’s great respect for Hitler’s military capabilities… Stalin knew it would end up spreading the Nazi military way to thin, & with the increasing risk of America joining the war, such a tactician wouldn’t dare.. Stalin was wrong. Hitler believed the only way to finally force America & Britain to the table under his terms was through Russia- Hitler was also wrong. Nazism & Communism are of the same ideological foundation. Both originate in Marx & Engels (amongst a few others). Hitler’s ideas on Eugenics actually came from the late secular enlightenment - early Romanticism, which began the removal of theological thought & Christianity with Scientism. Nazi’s weren’t actually “white supremacists” as they had strong alliances with the Islamic world & Japan. He targeted Jews as a group to place the blame upon for the hardships Germany suffered with after WW1. He was also targeting Catholics, but realized that there was still far too many Catholics in Protestant-Secular Germany, & Jews also had the appearance of success & not suffering as harshly (which is due to their strong community relationship with one another, helping other Jews going through hardships, as well as valuing education and hardwork along with saving their income); this & being a minority population made it easier to blame them & decry them for being selfish, stingy, sneaky, & loyal to each other over Germany.. the Eugenics movement - which had fascinated him- added ammo to his rhetoric. Hitler was a Socialist Democrat who was heavily influenced by the Eugenics teachings coming out of left wing atheist academia
I think this was a half fair review of this book. Two things I disagree with, I think Chen is one of the characters that struggles a bit with the ethics of ball lightning research. Not in the beginning, but towards the middle and end it seems that he understands the danger potentially involved and wants to get away from it but keeps getting pulled back in. Ding yi, also seems to understand that Lin Yun and her obsession with weapon research could go terribly wrong. Even yun's father and a couple other characters come down on her pretty hard for being so reckless. I also don't see the regression regarding females here. I understand that there's not a lot of female characters and yun is problematic throughout the book, but she has her reasons. I don't think it's because she's female, I mean I can't read the author's mind but I'm just not seeing it.
Tysm for the review! Really appreciated it. Just done reading the first three and I loved them (barring the clear misogyny of consistently blaming everything that went wrong on a woman lol.. And having such dodgy statements about effeminate men too). Aside from that the series is a solid 9/10, it's blown my mind in the best possible ways and I'm not traditionally a big Sci fi fan. Came here bc the fan fic follow up (TDOT) is already feeling all kinds of wrong 😅 it feels really disjointed to go from what was a wonderful "bird's eye view" of so many events and then watch it suddenly turn into multiple chapters of a 1-1 'confessional' of Tianming, using AA as his free therapist lol... That 'deep and meaningful' feels so at odds with the chilly but phenomenally written 'overview' we got for some rather dramatic events in the original trilogy. It feels very milquetoast so far and I'm glad to have seen your review so I know that if I do invest the time in reading it all I won't set my expectations too high 😅. Appreciate your take on the subject! 👏
Thanks for watching! I’ve been meaning to watch the series about Three Body Problem for a while now to get back into it, but I kind of prefer the novel and want to read that instead haha.
I'm tired (especially when regarding Cixin Liu's books) of people saying that if a female character is flawed or makes bad decisions, then the author's handling of gender is regressive. I just don't see that as being the case at all.
I came across your video while I was looking for a meaningful analysis of this poetry. As this poem did not make sense to me entirely however, after watching your pov on it really was a change of senary of me! I loved how you described the poem in such a fun way and with such care towards your viewers. Your video made me smile and really made me see the poem in a different and a fun way. Really appreciate your output! thanks!
"I've never really liked my story in The Killing Joke, i think it put far too much mellow dramatic weight upon a character that was never designed to carry it" I can't help but agree with that quote from him to a large degree despite my fondness of stories like Killing Joke and Dark Knight Returns.
After reading Redemption of Time, I am absolutely furious this book is the reason why Cixin Liu won’t write another book based in the 3BP universe.. this book is nothing but fan made trash, but the fact that the publishers recognize it as canon is beyond insulting.
I loved this book as well but my goodness I hated cheng xin so much, she just made blunder after blunder all because of her emotions and lack of logic and rationale, wade was my favorite character.
The kicker for me was when Cheng Xin is once again responsible for ruining everything with the missing 5 kg. The point is made clear: space is not for sissies. 🙄
