I recently read To Kill a Mockingbird. It talks of racist Alabama where a man is found guilty of a crime he didn’t commit, against common sense and also about a white man who is determined to do the right thing even if it costs him his reputation.
And of Scout and Jem and their neighbours and friends and of the Ewells; poor, dirty and morally bankrupt. Aunt Alex, those nosy aunts you are better off without.
And Atticus, the lawyer, father and friend of his children. He is adorable. He is firm. And he is principled.
If you haven’t read this book and you have time to spare, you should add it to your list.
House of Death by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
It is a story about prison life in Siberia. If you have bee to prison, I need not tell you how prison life is. If you haven’t been to prison, you may want to hear it from Alexander, that is, if you don’t have friends in prison 🙂
Dostoyevsky writes, about the nature of punishment, that
if it were desired to reduce a man to nothing- to punish him atrociously, to crush him in such a manner that the most hardened murderer would tremble before such a punishment, and take fright beforehand- it would be necessary to give to his a work a character of complete uselessness, even to absurdity.
It should be noted, he thinks work, as long as it has an aim, is tolerable. This is similar to the argument by Nietzsche among others, that work is expiation and that without it, life becomes intolerable.
He writes
No man lives, can live, without having some object in view and making efforts to attain that object.
He was definitely opposed to corporal punishment. About this he writes
the right granted to a man to inflict corporal punishment on his fellow-men is one of the plague-spots of our society. It is the means of annihilating all civic spirit.
And writing about reality, he says
Reality is a thing of infinite diversity and defies the most ingenious deductions and definition of abstract thought, nay, abhors the clear and precise classifications we so delight in.
And talking about men and their hearts,
you’ll never know what’s at the bottom of the man’s mind or heart
and finally, when some convicts who attempted t escape were rearrested and brought back to the convict prison, he wrote
success is everything in this world.
This last statement says a lot about humans.
About someone punished for a crime he did not commit, I have recently started to read the count of the monte cristo by Alexandre Dumas. When I am finished I would share my thoughts of it.
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Now, that’s a book I would love to read.
His three musketeers was a nice read. Captivating and full of surprises
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Years ago I downloaded a copy from Gutenberg on my ereader – together with some other books. But for some reason I did not look to my ereader for years. Though I realized some time ago, that there were some classics works among them, which were unavailable in my local public library.
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I should donate to the people at Gutenberg, without them, the world will be so poor. They have made available so many books at the click of a button.
I get my classics from there to my reader.
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I will do, when I got a job, my friend.
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Have you read Paul Beatty’s The Sellout? If not, put it on your list.
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No I haven’t. I will add it to the list
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The last statement does say a lot about humans but then so does you never know what’s in a man’s heart or mind, to paraphrase. Perhaps there are those not driven by success? But then again I suppose it depends on how one defines success. Have a great weekend. p.s. To Kill A Mockingbird: great book! 🙂
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Have you read Vicktor Frankl’s Mans Search for Meaning?
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Or Don Miguel Ruiz The Four Agreements?
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No. I will add to my to read list
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Yes, I have.
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Have a great weekend Paulette.
We can agree, To Kill a Mockingbird is a great book.
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Great books. I’ve read Mocking Bird, and I’ll add the other to my list of books to read.
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Jeff, other books have been suggested below by Pink and Paulette. You may want to check them out too
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