What are you reading right now?

[Lisnaholic]

today i also finished reading Gandhi: His Life and Message for the World by Louis Fischer (1950)

i highly recommend this biography

i've read and watched a fair amount on gandhi but this book more than anything else i've come across explains the methodology of his nonviolent approach and the reason it was so successful

even if sometimes it doesn't sound like it i've always been drawn to radical pacifism as an approach to achieve radical change

this book, without being dogmatic, makes a great case for the power of nonviolent action even against a violent regime

it also makes a good effort to put the uk into a fair light - gandhi was very candid in his criticisms of the colonizers but was also quick to point out ways in which they were morally more advanced than india

i doubt an honest approach to this subject would be published today but the author met with gandhi before he was assassinated and only used direct quotes from gandhi to bring in the realities of the colonization and the resistance and lack of resistance to the independence movement

like i said, i highly recommend this book and i doubt it was ever improved upon

Hey, Toy Soldier! I have also read that same book about Gandhi, and found it very interesting! It's an extraordinary insight, by a man with  first-hand experience, into the hard-to-believe story of India's Independence/ Partition, and Gandhi's role and influence over it all. I can't think that there's ever been a world leader like Gandhi before or since.

To be honest though, I struggled with the length of this book, and - at about three-quarters of the way through - said to myself, "There's no way I'm ever going to read this again, so I'd better push on and finish it." For some reason, I found myself helped along by the recurring presence of Miss Madeline Slade, Westerner extraordinaire, who turns up again and again in the closing stages of Gandhi's life. "If she could live it, the least I can do is read it." That was my attitude to the book at times. 



^ Gandhi's only possessions at the time of his death: I'm clearly more materialistic than I like to think.

[Toy Revolver]

To be honest though, I struggled with the length of this book

but it was under 250 pages ()

i visited sabarmati ashram when back when i was twenty something

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabarmati_Ashram

that trip was also during the 50th anniversary of their independence and at one point i was on a bus that went through a gigantic celebration of the anniversary- we could only go like 2-5 mph and the sea of people- it was surreal- i went to two demonstrations in dc (gay rights and choice) that were 750,000 people plus and this seemed like ten times as huge
 
i have no idea how many people were really there but it seemed like an ocean

[Lisnaholic]

Ah! Same author, same topic, even same year of publication (1950) but apparently not the same book: this one is 530 pages, which of itself is not excessive, but with all the political rallies and factional divisions, I found it a struggle.

Congrats on visiting the great man's ashram; I can't really imagine you as a twenty-something ashram visitor.

[Toy Revolver]

this one is 530 pages

yeah i could see things starting to blur together with an extra 200 pages

i'm glad i got the ramones version and not the pink floyd version

Congrats on visiting the great man's ashram; I can't really imagine you as a twenty-something ashram visitor.

i stayed for around ten days in a buddhist monastery on that trip as well

it wasn't one that typically took on tourists either - i was with another american i befriended who was a concert level classical guitarist who had his instrument with him - we were looking for a bigger monastery that lonely planet said rented rooms to foreigners but got lost and found this place instead

they were all refugees from tibet

it cost us around 50 cents a day and that included meals with the monks - i thought they were supposed to be vegetarians but we sure ate a lot of water buffalo meat

i just lounged around and read everyday while the monks chanted and this dude practiced his guitar - it wasn't lost on me how fortunate i was to be having such an experience

[Toy Revolver]

PROFILES
THE WILD WORLD OF MUSIC
What can elephants, birds, and flamenco players teach a neuroscientist-composer about music?


By Burkhard Bilger


***very interesting article in the new yorker that deals with the neuroscience of music and animal intelligences***

it's behind a paywall, unfortunately

[Toy Revolver]

more from this impressive issue of the new yorker - a short story called ALISA by  Lyudmila Ulitskaya

her wikipedia page makes want to read more

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyudmila_Ulitskaya

[Toy Revolver]

Ah! Same author, same topic, even same year of publication (1950) but apparently not the same book: this one is 530 pages, which of itself is not excessive, but with all the political rallies and factional divisions, I found it a struggle.

Congrats on visiting the great man's ashram; I can't really imagine you as a twenty-something ashram visitor.

sad that india is turning its back on this proud history



source nyt


modi will probably retire in florida

[Toy Revolver]

just finished

Wendell Berry
The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry

i've been interested in the dark mountain project for years now

https://dark-mountain.net/the-world-ending-fire/

these essays are essential like thoreau and emerson and muir

i'm glad i finally got it

better late than never

[jadis]

more from this impressive issue of the new yorker - a short story called ALISA by  Lyudmila Ulitskaya

her wikipedia page makes want to read more

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyudmila_Ulitskaya

Is it about the lady whose mother did an Anna Karenina?

[Toy Revolver]

more from this impressive issue of the new yorker - a short story called ALISA by  Lyudmila Ulitskaya

her wikipedia page makes want to read more

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyudmila_Ulitskaya

Is it about the lady whose mother did an Anna Karenina?

yes - good call 🙌

[jadis]

She's a really fine writer. Only read stories here and there, want to read her novel about the translator. First took interest in her when I was obsessively googling an outstanding visiting prof I studied with years ago and it turned out they were friends

She's like my dad in that she studied the hard sciences at uni because the humanities were just Soviet ideological slop. Except she chose genetics, which in Soviet Russia was ideological slop as well

She's one of those rare Russians (at least in her generation) for whom the ideas of "gender as a social construct" or "gender performance" or just gender diversity aren't alien nonsense https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/07/russian-ludmila-ulitskaya-gay-propaganda-book

[jadis]

Her gut reaction to the Ukraine war is worth reading

[Toy Revolver]

just finished

The Elric Saga #6
Stormbringer

by Michael Moorcock

the copy i have has the same cover as alternate cover of Hawkwind's The Chronicle of the Black Sword

talk about taking your time getting around to reading something- i've been meaning to read this for over forty years

it's the first moorcock i've read and i have to say it's truly rock solid

i was in high school when i read tolkein but from memory the hobbit was the only one i enjoyed this much and i'm pretty sure back to back stormbringer is much better

i found moorcock's universe very intriguing- the monsters are wild and the storyline was also really cool


i'm glad i got to it

[jadis]

The Hobbit was the last book I read in Moscow before we immigrated to Canada when I was a kid. I borrowed it from someone and was pretty sad to return it because I absolutely loved it and thought I'll never find this rare exotic book again...

Tried to read some other Tolkin in my late teens and it was very clear it's not for me

[Toy Revolver]

https://apple.news/A_9gapf2USNy2NSVpXjnfIg



if you're stuck behind the paywall- i hope you can still find a way to read this if you're interested in lgbtq history

this story reminds of when i was at a gay rights demonstration in dc and Allen Schindler's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Allen_R._Schindler_Jr. mother spoke - it was so sad - i cannot think about it even still without crying