I’ll get around to that later. I believe that I should leave my readers laughing and full of good thoughts and happy feelings inside.
That aside, I want to whore myself out to commericalism and promiscuously advertise myself out there. Hey, if any publishers are seeing this, I’ll do this for money, too.
So begins a gigantic book listing of …books… that I’ve read and totally recommend to everyone. You’ll either feel that orgastic feeling of a really amazing book, or you’ll feel like me when I found out the fucking Jonas Brothers did a cover of the Beatles, and little air-headed pubescent girls, who would take up prostitution to sex the disgusting trio, actually have the audacity to say that the Jonas Brothers > Beatles. Yeah, I have chainsaws on the ready for you.
Anyway, this year has been a rather interesting year for me. Not like the rest of my life isn’t a demanding and rigorous adventure on a day to day basis, but on the deeper and more emotional level — yes, I actually can feel — I’ve been delving into worlds people deem as depressing, morbid, and well, “anti-religious.”
I like reading eschatological books. Books about the end-of-the-world. Books about humanity’s suffering. Books about humanity’s greatest pitfalls and mistakes and sins, all amalgamated into a dark and often unredemptive novel. Books that question authority and are often conquered by it. Books where the good guys never win. Books where there may be no good guys. Books that force me into a one-sided epistemological discussion with myself. Books that hold God on a pedestal and push him down again. Books by equally morbid people fabricating a draconian universe. Books that appeal to my depressing and anti-everything nature.
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. A man falls in love with a porn star he saw as a child. His best friend manufactures the perfect race of humanoid species. Humanity crumbles and collapses due to a mass-produced drug promising health, vitality, and mind blowing sex. Porn is art of the body. He’s not even that awesome; he’s only human.
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. A woman drives her sister to suicide. She cheats on her husband. She ends up lonely and depressed. Even the side fantasy story where ponies run around and everything’s suppose to be a happily-ever-after is filled with hot cannibalistic women and the perfect society that sacrifices little girls and crosses the line on child labor. The couple don’t even end up together.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. This book is probably the most, well, cheery book out of the lot. People are mass-produced. Literature, religion, family, love; basically everything America holds dear and true are thrown out the window in favor of a more utopian and materialistic society where people are forced to buy, buy, buy and spend, spend, spend…and sex, sex, sex. The one character who is able to make a difference- who asserts that God exists, who idolizes the ideals of love, who quotes Shakespeare- succumbs and bam. There is no redemption.
1984 by George Orwell. Can I say more? I already wrote about it. There’s a movie of it. Apple even used Gates as Big Brother and hired a sexy female to smash his image into bits. Come on. You know the saying: Down with Big Brother! Down with Big Brother! Down with Big Brother! It’s fucking depressing! Humanity as a whole loses any chance of salvation it ever had.
A fantastic collection of epistemological essays aruging against theism by a bunch of philosophers and writers.
I think that reading these books makes me a very cynical human being. After all, one does not usually indulge in things that proclaims one is a dirty, despicable, and superficial creature with cirually no chance of survival, literal and figurative.
Now that I’m sure you’ve fallen to a state where you feel all hope for humankind is lost or that I’m a very arrogant and depressed indivdual in need of psychotheraphy of some sort, I’ll move on the happier, cheerier, and more comforting books.
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. Trust me, it’s redemptive. Plus there’s lots of life lessons to be learned.
The Namesake and The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. Although the former is quite the epicurean novel that- dare I say- almost promotes sexual exploration it still gives you the happy feeling in the end. The latter is a composition of short stories that illustrate a very hopeful end for any sad story.
The Last leaf by O’ Henry. Hell, any short story by O’ Henry save for The Furnishing Room, or something like that. That one particular story is incredibly touching, though. Drunkards are people, too.
Oh, the Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss. Any Dr. Seuss will work. His wonky rhymes, LSD-influenced art, and storylines offer such empowerment.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Again, on the human experience and the traumatic outcomes of hardship, but there’s so much hope in this one, even when it seems so pointless.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Raw. Real. Reverberating. As in I cringed and cried on the tour bus while I was reading this and was awarded with awkward stares. Very worth it, though.
AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST.
CALVIN AND HOBBES BY BILL WATTERSON. FUCK YES. Need I say more? Childish adventures of a boy and his tiger interjected with sparse but insightful commentary on mankind’s predictament alongside very adorable yet simple illustrations of his redemption revealing that amid all that hopelessness and depravity exists an opportunity to prove to everyone and everything that, with the help of a lovable stuffed animal antropomorphized into a wise man/woman…we should just say the hell with it and have the time of our live. Of course I’m suppose to add something moral here, so in the end: don’t watch too much TV, question authority, love the environment, go outside more, waste time, laze around, sleep under shady trees during the summer, have an overreactive imagination, bully your babysitter, and love your friends. They’re always there for you no matter how much you screw up or don’t want to feed them tuna sandwiches. I must admit. This “book” is my favorite one.
Oh, right…my malapropism.
Uhm…I don’t know. No witty nor clever things are popping into my head right now.
Boy, that was anticlimatic.
