Every philosopher must get a hold of this novel.
590890
Every philosopher must get a hold of this novel. Nothing quite like anything else.
654213
If only every piece of new fiction were this powerfully written, lots of  us would do nothing but read fiction. The originality of metaphor and  observation of character and place remind me of the best of Toni Morrison.  The mesmerizing scene-building, the meticulous sense of place, the  enigmatic plot, the powerful, original writing--not to mention the  coherence of the central metaphor of verticality--I'm considering reading  The Intuitionist again for the sheer enjoyment of its language and  intellect. All this, and a page-turner at the same time. Whitehead is a  rare find: a master of fiction in an age which has a dearth of them.
4542574
The Goldfinch is bound to become a classic on the order of War and Peace.  All the characters are fully and artistically described, and they are intricately bound into the post-9-11 world with all its terror, false hopes, consumerism, and violence.  The plot winds in and out of the shadows, as characters befriend and prey on each other. Dialogue is scintillating.  There is much to discuss here, not the least of which is the painting of the goldfinch which is the pivot upon which everyone's fate turns.  This is a truly remarkable book which will remain a literary classic for 100 years or more because it documents accurately the time we live in and a hero's life on the edge of disaster.  I was riveted to it for all 780 pages and want to read it again and again.
1555127
This novel is a masterpiece of a Utopian novel. Aldous Huxley skill as a social commentator shines out in this terrific novel. Huxley is one of few authors that ha the ability to make the improbable seem probable. Huxley  expresses the negative effects of the advancements in science. It is the  idea that knowledge is power and for those who control and use knowledge  holds the power. I highly reccomend this book for all to read.
1249720
This is an informally written, smart  book that should be accessible to an intelligent reader who knows a bit of philosophy but hasn't thought much about it for a while.  Goldstein's book will not only show this reader how interwoven philosophy is with life, ancient as well as contemporary, but also teach the reader something about philosophy and help him or her begin to ask philosophical questions as an ongoing part of life.  The book should also appeal to those who are well trained in philosophy for the causal care and expertise with which philosophical ideas are discussed.  Will those who are anti-philosophical be persuaded by this non-confrontational book?  Perhaps.  I hope they will consider it carefully.  This is a valuable book whose importance is far-reaching.
2792782
One should probably read this great novel TWICE to catch all the nuances. Like his other major works, this masterpiece by Dostoevsky drives home two central, inter-related themes: (a) that ideas (and ideology) have  consequences; and (b) that these can be deadlier than any other force on  earth.
For sheer depth and profundity, probably nothing can match the  parable of The Grand Inquisitor, in THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, but there's one  line in C&P that immediately struck me as one of the greatest single  sentences in all the world's literature, quintessentially pregnant with  meaning. The detective, Porfiry Petrovich, who knows that Raskolnikov is  the murderer, doesn't arrest him, playing a sort of cat-and-mouse game.  Porfiry rightly suspects that this was a political (ideological) crime, not  a typical one, and knows that his triumph would be much greater if he  forces Raskolnikov to ADMIT not just the error of his act, but the error of  his thinking. This sentence varies considerably from translation to  translation, but basically it is (Porfiry to Raskolnikov): "You know,  it's just as well you only killed the old woman. Because if you'd invented  another THEORY, that would have been a thousand times MORE hideous."  The events of our century have well borne out this prophecy.
The other  superb part of this novel is when Raskolnikov's friend Razmuihin is shocked  to hear that Raskolnikov's journal article had suggested that  "superior" men, like Napoleon, create their own moral codes and  are not bound by traditional ones. (Woody Allen's film BULLETS OVER  BROADWAY also provided a good satire of this ominous idea: an artist  "creates his own moral universe." And, as in C&P, this led to  a killing.) What shocks Razmuihin the most is that wanton killing and  terror could be justified PRECISELY IN THE NAME OF MORALITY.
Have we not  seen enough of this already, in its most terrible aspects? The point is:  such theories are still boiling in the pot, and we may not have heard the  last of them.
2122947
I'm not kidding. This one deserves a Pulitzer. It's the most important book I've read in years -- and I have not met one person who read it that was not blown away. I literally could not put it down -- read 100 pages the first day. If you know someone who isn't convinced yet, they need this book. I guarantee it proves the case. And even if you are convinced, this book has a whole bunch of activism, and also talking points you can use to persuade other people. Get one for yourself and two for the world, and give them to organizations.
3270616
This novel has every element of a classic American novel. Post-war England is contrasted with the newly independant India. The characters are multi-dimensional, unlike too many "cardboard" characters in current writings. Character development is a key element of the novel, though the plot is engrossing as well. The reader is drawn into the story from page one and each page has some pithy observation which the reader is eager to discuss with someone else. There are subtle leit-motivs if one is inclined to look for them. Besides the philosophical comparisons of various marriages, religions, countries, values, happiness, there seem to be subtle questions about loyalty to one's country, mate, family, history and other human importances. This is a book that I will read again, even though there are yet so many unread books out there. After a marathon of reading this summer, finding this gem outweighs all the precious time spent reading mediocre books. After reading the last paragraph of this book I was reluctant to begin another. What can follow perfection?
3070694
This novel is a treasure trove. One can read and reread it because one simply cannot grasp all of the gifts that it offers. The symbolism is poetic and profound, and constantly enables the reader to deeply reflect on the existence of us all and what it truly means to be alive. Yes, we suffer... but what we do with this suffering is what counts... and this novel has very interesting conceptions on that. Eloquently written by a novelist who studied under the late and great James Dickey, it is a work that deserves to see more attention. A work of art, indeed. Please get a copy and enjoy it.
4940444
If you've read the works of Jean-Paul Sartre, Michael Foucault, or just about any work that has gotten you to stop and think, then pick up this novel because somewhere in its 179 pages, you will discover content that will take your thoughts and grow them to an exponential level.  This dwarf sized novel is a power packed sequence of dreams, that demand the reader to think, muse, analyze and reconsider the essence of time, fate, decision, and of what we value in our lives.  Some of the texts that I've read this with are: Sartre's "Literature and Existentialism," Oliver Sach's "Man who Mistook his wife for a Hat," Alucqure Rosanne Stone's "War of Desire and Technology; at the close of the Mechanical Age," and James Redfield's "The Celestine Prophecy."  Just as KPT has done wonders for the Adobe Photoshop, so does Einstein's Dreams take surfacy ruminations to reveal a universe of implications
386301
Everyone should read this book. This is well researched, well thought out philosophy writen as fiction. The nature of the character Ishmael is a surprise and a very clever way to get the reader to pay attention to what he has to say.
4308681
I've read this book three times and enjoyed it more each time. I believe you MUST read it more than once just to digest the myriad of subplots and the larger-than-life characters that permeate this novel. At the risk of sounding elitist, this book is not for everyone. "Light" reading it is not. Dostoevsky peers into the psyche of his characters by placing each in the most excruciating context.

Who can ever forget Marmeladov or Svidrigailov? Or, Raskolnikov's dream about the beating of a horse and Svidrigailov's guilt-driven dream about a small child? Dostoevsky unflinchingly examines our oftentimes contradictory human nature; a nature that can be chilling, cruel, and at times depraved. But for Dostoevsky, it is suffering that is necessary for clarity, and ultimately, redemption. Even if you do not agree with Dostoevsky's notion of the human condition--it's a tough sell in our modern age--the book is unquestionably the work of a literary genius.
3641719
I concur wholeheartedly that this is momentous writing:
one that is even now more critical and urgent than 40 years ago, when it was first published.

Each page offers words-thoughts that ricochet long after their initial bang!  Here's a sample:

+ to work for delight and authenticity is barely distinguishable from preparing for a general insurrection.

+ the surest chances of liberation lie in what is most familiar. Was it ever otherwise?...
the living reality of non-adaptation to the world is always crouched ready to spring...
it confronts you at each self-evasion, it grasps your shoulder, catches your eye, and the dialogue begins...

+ docility is no longer ensured by priestly magic, it results from a mass of minor hypnoses...
ideological hypnosis is replacing the bayonet.

+ people who talk about revolution without referring explicitly to everyday life,
without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constrains,
--such have a corpse in their mouth.

+ if the word 'innovation' means anything it means transcendence, not camouflage.

+ consume, consume: we take ashes for fire.

+ the young are already old and everything we are building is already a ruin.

+ the obligation to produce alienates the passion for creation.

+ affluent survival entails the pauperisation of life.

+ the dictatorship of quantified exchange (market value) colonized everyday life... the bourgeoisie traded in BEING for HAVING.

+ the fight is unfair. words serve power better than they do men...
at this moment language swoops down on living experience, ties it hand and foot, robs it of its substance, ABSTRACTS it.

+ the system of commercial exchange has come to govern all of people's everyday relations with themselves and with their fellows.
every aspect of public and private life is dominated by the quantitative.

+ ideology still has one trick up its sleeve--that of posing false questions,
raising false dilemmas and leaving the conditioned individual with the worry of sorting out which is the truer of the two.

+ even when it is co-opted and turned against its original purposes, poetry always gets what it wants in the end...
no poetic sign is ever completely turned by ideology.

+ the long revolution means that we have to build a parallel society
which can counter the dominant system until such time as it is strong enough to replace it.

+ the fight for language is the fight for the freedom to love, for the reversal of perspective.
the battle is between metaphysical facts and the reality of facts:
i mean between facts conceived statically as part of a system of interpretation of the world
and the facts understood in their development by the praxis which transform them.

And on and on the explosive phrases go, injecting heavy doses of adrenaline into our resolve.

Even though I take exception to Vaneigem's advocacy of violent resistance,
his book comes the closest to diagnosing the cause of our present  narcosis and, even better,
grounds the revolutionary turning on the rich dirt of everyday life.

How could we ever think it would be otherwise?
1963881
This book is invaluable in its entirety.  It covers with an intricate simplicity the problematic.  It is shrouded by a synthesis of sheer genius.  From the preface to the index, my mouth watered as I turned from page to page.  This edition expounds with granduer the extent of human thought throughout antiquity.  To put to in a nutshell the 'Oxfords Companion to Philosophy' is the "magnum opus" of reference materials.
3758982
This book will become a classic among the many wonderful novels about the potential for counter-utopias (creating the opposite of a better life for humanity), and deserves far more than five stars.  I found it as interesting and rewarding as 1984, Brave New World, and Atlas Shrugged.
Researchers constantly find that reading to children is valuable in a variety of ways, not least of which are instilling a love of reading and improved reading skills. With better parent-child bonding from reading, your child will also be more emotionally secure and able to relate better to others. Intellectual performance will expand as well. Spending time together watching television fails as a substitute.
To help other parents apply this advice, as a parent of four I consulted an expert, our youngest child, and asked her to share with me her favorite books that were read to her as a young child. The Giver was one of her picks.  She said, "It's an awesome book, Dad, and it will only take you an hour to reread."  My wife then chimed in and said I really should review this book for Amazon.com.  So here it is.
Ms. Lowry paints a bleak picture of having achieved equal lives for all.  Everyone gets the same things, and interactions are modulated so that there will be a minimum of social disorder.  Think of this as socialism turned into a low-security prison camp operated by the inmates with the help of drugs to keep everyone's minds and emotions numb.
The book evolves through the life of Jonas, a 12 year old, who has lived this life of great civility and little intensity up until the book's beginning.  Then he goes through a great ritual in which each young person begins specific training for their life's work, as determined by the collective to best fit their skills and personalities.
Jonas is to have a role that he did not even know existed.  He is to be the one person in the society who will have memories of what occurred before the collective state was formed.  His tutor will be the man who has had this role until now.  That man is the Giver.  I won't tell you any more, because I don't want to spoil the story.  The rest proceeds much like what would occur with a hero in an Ayn Rand novel.  The resolution of the conflict is a particularly inventive and thought-provoking one.
This book is particularly good for showing the dangers of having everyone think alike.  I heartily endorse its message of exploring new thoughts and experiences.  Those provide us with greater comfort than a grey conformity that we do not even perceive as such.
After you have finished enjoying this outstanding book, I suggest that you ask yourself what rules your family has that could be creating missed opportunities to be more caring and close to one another.  After you locate those rules, I suggest you have a discussion about the benefits of changing those rules.  Good luck!
May you find warmth and love wherever you go!!
243465
"American Subversive" is a thought-provoking and extremely timely novel. Goodwillie's strongest and indeed most remarkable quality is his aptitude - or knack - for depicting the complex sentiments of a particular generation and decade. He did this once before in his memoir "Seemed like a Good Idea at the Time," a big-hearted (and very funny) account of living in New York in one's twenties (in this case during the frivolous dot-com boom-years), which is what led me to his novel.
In juxtaposition, "American Subversive" portrays the darker ethos of the years following the war on terrorism. The novel's central character, Aidan Cole, and his educated literary New York friends emotionally disengage and meet America's dark realities with cynicism. The novel's heroine, Paige Roderick, on the other hand, is moved to act. Her frustration and impatience with America's patently broken systems presciently reflect the current real-life sentiments of many in the Occupy movement, who flooded the streets with banners reading "99%" and "Human need not Corporate Greed." The very issues Paige battles with in the novel are ones raised today by OWS activists.
Does Goodwillie have a six sense? He has an acute understanding (and the eloquence to describe) the disillusionment of Americans and the urgency that is widely felt to bring about social change. "American Subversive" is not only highly recommendable, but also an important novel, particularly as we continue to witness the inequities and brutality bought about by the current global economic and political system, and people rising up in mass protests against political and corporate greed around the world.
2616407
This is one of the most ambitious, comprehensive and successful ethical texts I have ever read. It is written for a broad audience, but is especially suitable reading for college-level students of ethics and moral theory. Borgmann does a beautiful job of connecting canonical theoretical ethics with the practical problems we face as members of this nation and of an increasingly connected global community. Yes, he expresses opinions here, and naturally not everyone will agree with all of them. But Borgmann is a philosopher, and it is the job of a philosopher is to make the kinds of claims that get us thinking, and that get us re-thinking some of our deepest assumptions. He does that, and so much more, beautifully in this book.