User Profile

Frank Zappa would've loved it.

The best book of Ursula K. Le Guin I've read to the date, and I've read a bunch.

The depiction of the anarchist society and the bureaucracy crawling between the ideological lines acutely demonstrates that one should be always vigilant communicating with state-like structures. There are a lot to say about the power structures in aforementioned Anarres society since the book describes them for quite a considerable time period: crises, hardships, famines, constant relocations, losses of the friends and the loved ones; however portraying the rigidity of the people accustomed to the system, even the one with the anarchist principles, as the most dangerous challenge.

But this is what happens on Anarres, the moon. What is hapenning on Urras—the capitalist planet—is the comedic unraveling of our day-to-day life of consumption, authority, and patriarchy. Every Shevek's encounter with capitalistic structures: a shopping mall, an art gallery, a bourgeois party, is so much fun and horror — we live here! I had a wild time reading through Urras chapters.

The thing that caught my eye was the recurring idea within Ursula's works about the necessity of running away and closing down from the existing power structures and ideologies of the previous system — it repeats here, in "The Word for World is Forest", and in "The Left Hand of Darkness" as well. I am not sure where this is coming from; not sure I agree; but the premise is really depressing — there is no chance for us, since there is nowhere to run, because "But is it only bigots, then, who are allowed to go out into the cosmos?".

And remember: "Responsibility for each other is freedom."

"Como agua para chocolate" es el primer libro en español que decidí leer por el lenguaje sencillo. Tuve algunas dificultades con las palabras mexicanas y el vocabulario culinario, pero entendí toda la historia casi sin interrupciones.

Por desgracia, ni cocción ni realismo magico no son cosas que me inspiran y este libro me dejó triste y aburrido. Los unicos personajes que emocionaron, fueron Mamá Elena, en quien reconozco a mis padres, y Gertrudis, por su actividad revolucionaria.

"Como agua para chocolate" es el primer libro en español que decidí leer por el lenguaje sencillo. Tuve algunas dificultades con las palabras mexicanas y el vocabulario culinario, pero entendí toda la historia casi sin interrupciones.

Por desgracia, ni cocción ni realismo magico no son cosas que me inspiran y este libro me dejó triste y aburrido. Los unicos personajes que emocionaron, fueron Mamá Elena, en quien reconozco a mis padres, y Gertrudis, por su actividad revolucionaria.

Indeed describes the main ideas of Dostoyevsky's philosophy and his view of the world. I despise it though.

David van Reybrouck makes an argument for sortition in addition to elections to make the system more legitemate and effective at the same time. Whilst the idea sounds interesting the author does not even conceptually try to analyse the risks of corruption in this new system. Reads more like a short introduction or a pamphlet to the idea.

The tone is quite suspicious, it tries to be provocative and challenging but it just doesn't make any sense to write in this tone if one wants to sell the idea to the politicians. Even the name of the book “Against Elections” is misleading — David van Reybrouck is not against the elections but against using only elections as a means for democracy.