Not only an excellent read, but a complete experience.

While reading about our origins and reasons behind our behaviours as individuals and as societies, I couldn’t help constantly thinking to myself: “well, that makes total sense”.

We’re hard-wired by our collective knowledge, slaves to our self-created imagined orders, thinking and believing in the rules the human species has set out across generations past.

They have come organically as a consequence of progress, technology and our need for expansion.

This book shows the biological and completely objective reasons behind culture, ideology, technology, happiness, decisions, and makes a strong case of what our future might look like.

Dr. Jekyll found in Mr. Hyde freedom from the restrictions of his life as a scientist and as a member of the high society.

It was not necessarilly for being discontent with any of them, but simply because our minds are multifacetic and complex.

It’s evident this novel has been the inspiration for many modern stories, not only of personality disorders, but of addiction and excess of quick pleasures.

And as in many cases, the person ends up in disgrace when the mind succumbs to these and loses control.

An exceptional novel for those who have experienced how misunderstood and enigmatic an person’s mind can become when facing day-to-day a terminal illness.

The carer tends to consider it simply an illness, and unconsciously fills it with while lies and false optimisms.

The ill person, on the other hand, only wants to feel comforted, protected, understood.

One of Ivan Ilych’s more valuable reflections is how intrandescent a life “that should be” is.

When wishing to go back to the truly pleasurable and good moments of his life, he finds that his joy was always far from what is usually considered valuable by society (money, power).

He found the worthy memories on the smallest flashes of happiness like, on his example, the first time he tasted marmalade.

A quote that promptly can be used to summarize his reflections on his life:

It is as if I had been going downhill while I imagined I was going up. And that is really what it was. I was going up in public opinion, but to the same extent life was ebbing away from me. And now it is all done and there is only death.

There are no evil characters is Tolstoy’s short stories, only actions (or lack there of) that leads them in the wrongful paths.

Most of the stories set up scenarios where, through compassion, care for others and selflessness, people achieve true happiness, or, in Tolstoy’s eyes, “they find God”.

From my point of view this means finding joy and fulfillment.

And as narrated in “Ivan the fool” or in “Two old men”, it’s not usually the traditionally known path, but the one where the characters have surrendered selfish desires or simply have stopped caring about leading lives according to external factors.

I was deeply impressed by this short story’s capacity to take on multiple subjects on little text.

The remarkable part is its argument of how genius for a certain skill -chess in this case- can have its root in raw innate talent or as consequence of disciplined and frequent practice.

And in the case of the latter, as a side-effect of the process -detailed in a highly immersive section of the book- of white torture.

A completely immersive experience.

We don’t know enough about the Holocaust atrocities and this story relives it as close as I’ve seen, including how much, in spite the war ending, the torment never goes away from the mind of a survivor.

A man in a distopian future where society is controlled by an autocracy and knowledge through books is prohibited.

I found fascinating how forward-looking these writings were at that time.

Also was a bit disappointed to discover they formed the bridge for Rome’s transition into Christianity, which shows how much transformation can ideologies and philosophies suffer over time, and how cyclical they are throughout history.

A journey into Carl Sagan’s “shower thoughts”.

A compilation of his opinions on multiple subjects, from the origin of the universe, life, the human being, society and mostly on our permanent shortsightedness on our future as a species.

I found intriguing his ability to abstract the usually complex scientific knowledge into understandable and relatable text, in which we can realize how insignificant human life is when compared to Earth’s history, let alone the universe’s.

“Human beings have just arrived here, barely a few million years ago.”

The last chapter and epilogue is the sad but hopeful last note of a truly remarkable human: his final journey into the unknown.

Just like a mountain climber attempting the Everest summit, this book builds on tension as you progress deeper into it. It has build-up, creating a composition of emotions that would be similar to the experiences of those who faced the 1996 tragedy.

Krakauer makes what I consider is a valid argument on the fact that the story is not something out of the ordinary for the average Everest climbing seasons. People die every year while trying to reach the top. It also explicitly states how dangerous the attempt is for amateurs and professionals alike, every year, and it implies that other deaths carry a similar set of causes. It is something I found realistic, accurate, and quite enjoyed from Krakauer’s writing style.