Reading The Clown by Heinrich Böll.

Probably his most famous novel this book mostly criticises post war catholic/capitalist German society for it’s hypocrisy and not really denazifying. It’s good, but the main character, who loses his girlfriend to a catholic and is handling it pretty badly is quite the doomer at times. There is enough cynical humor, sarcasm and irony to not make it too dark to read, but depending on how the story ends it definitely could become pretty dark in the end. It also cuts very close to home with some issues, but that rather enhances the reading experience, despite being quite uncomfortable at times. At times it’s a bit hard to discern wether the author did something on purpose to give his protagonist some negative traits, or if he just believed that stuff himself (especially how women are treated is pretty bad) but I’m quite sure that I’ll be able to judge this better by the end of the book. Overall I’d recommend reading it, but it’s definitely an emotional downer.

Reading „Our Man in Havanna“ by Greene. It’s funny, in an interesting setting and I am really enjoying it. Has anybody read anything else by Greene?

Sounds a lot like absurdism which I’ve been into a lot this year. I read some Camus and really loved it (The myth of Sisyphos, The Stranger and The Plague).

And yeah, I agree with your description of Broicism. It’s more about being like Hemingway/John Wayne and suppressing your emotions than being at peace with things being out of your control.

Thanks for taking the time for such a thorough reply! I’ll have to read my copy of Meditations to see any further similarities and where both differentiate from each other.

What’s your favourite Dostoevsky then? Definitely agree on the trouble accessing Russian mores tho. Had the same issues with Heart of a dog and that’s even more recent…

Had a hard time getting into the brothers my first go around as well. It’s just soo fucking long and so rich that you really can pick apart any passage so I kinda got lost somewhere during a reading slump. Let us know how you liked it once you’re done!

Planning on reading this myself some time… since you say it’s relevant today, how would you say it compares to all the broicism that’s the main version of stoicism nowadays?

Just finished Mikhail Bulgakovs Heart of a Dog. I don’t really know what to think if this. It’s kinda great but also kinda hard to judge because of my lack of knowledge of the cultural and historical background. This makes the satirical elements a lot harder to understand. I liked it though. It has a lot of similarities with Frankenstein, Faust or the Physicists in the questions it asks, paired with commentary on the ideal soviet citizen. The story is about a scientist, who implants some organs of a lowlife human into a dog, which transforms the dog into a human. Chaos ensues. Overall I’d recommend it, it’s a short read.

Always feel conflicted blocking guys like this… I wanna keep seeing them so I can downvote, but they also are just fucking annoying and toxic.

That looks wild! I’ll have to see if I can get a copy somewhere. And from what I’m reading I also couldn’t really answer any of my questions, but in this case it sounds like that’s a good thing haha

That sound interesting, care to elaborate a bit? Do you like it? What genre is it? Any comparisons to something else?

Reading Germinal by Emile Zola right now. From time to time it gets a bit too dry and reads more like political theory than fiction, but overall I’m enjoying it a lot. Got about 100 pages left and it seems like it’ll end in tragedy, but that was to be expected from the start.

I love the way Zola describes things. The darkness, the cold, the mines that are more like man-eating beasts than mere workplaces, make you really feel the tragic plight of the workers there.

It is also quite depressing to me how many lines I can draw from what I’m reading to what I’m hearing in my own life. The fight hasn’t really changed and the arguments that I hear also haven’t.

Probably gonna finish it this week and not sure what’s next, but I can definitely recommend this to anyone interested in politics and social justice. It feels very realistic (who would have thought, it’s realist/naturalist literature after all) and makes for a great fictional adaptation of the often pretty dry political theory on communism and socialism at the time.

I’m OOTL, what did contrapoints do?

Did you smoke pure or spliffs? Loads of people have trouble smoking/vaping straight herb after smoking mostly herb/tobacco mixes before. They aren’t used to the harsher weed smoke without the nicotine numbing their throat.

In the long run I’d miss my loved ones too much. For a year or so? I’d love it!

How is your trip going? And how long did your 500€ last you? Assuming you already spent them, what are you doing now to sustain yourself?

I hope they are planning on giving the room some sound treatment. Their square box rn is gonna fuck with the sound so much that they won’t even notice the fancy gear that they have.

I feel like there were already plenty of lines crossed. What makes you think they wouldn’t this time?

I feel like calling Leto the lead in that is a bit of a stretch…

Idk, I could see him becoming a martyr… not because he deserves it, or because anybody thinks he should be, but because using martyrs for propaganda is definitely popular with leaders of extreme movements. Martyrs can be held up as shining examples of devotion to followers, while at the same time showing how vile their opponents are. And the best thing: they are dead. So they can stand for anything you want without objections.

Look at Horst Wessel. He was an unimportant pimp and a fascist piece of shit. Nazis are singing his song to this day in Germany, even though it’s punishable with jail time.

This guy is great, I highly recommend his channel

I personally know a few people who do similar stuff or use it as therapist. It’s anecdotal of course but I don’t think many people using AI for personal connections and interactions is very surprising. Before AI people used chat boards, blogs, social media and google to talk about and commiserate about their problems, now it’s AI. There was an “AI” called Eliza in the late 60s and people already were using that as a therapist and attributed intelligence and real emotions to it.

This whole thing says more about the availability and demand for real human connection and therapy than it does about the individuals who use it.