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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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I'm enjoying this. Otto Neubert was an Archaeologist/Egyptologist who was with Howard Carter when he opened the Tomb of Tutankhamun.
He's good with his history - and, with almost 4,000 years of "civilized" history, (how many Pharaohs?) there's a lot to explore. And it rivals - surpasses - anything in the wildest Indiana Jones movie. Subterranean crypts filled with the bodies of hundreds of slaves murdered to protect the hiding place of the tombs, the vast necropolises for cats, crocodiles, herons, you name it, the culture of almost perpetual grave-robbing, the empire was cannibalizing it's dead shortly after they were hidden in the ground, and have been doing so for thousands of years...
I could go on. It's not a great book, but it captures something of the flavor of what Egypt once was, and the thrill of discovery that continues to this day...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
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This was the deal I made with the daughter, or rather, she made with me, that I would recommend her a book but I would have to read her recommendation...
"Sure" I think, but then there's the book. "Eat, Pray, Love", by Elizabeth Gilbert. Oh man.
Now as I recommend books all the time I have no choice but to read her recommendation - I can hear Hannibal hissing "Quid Pro-Quo, Clarice, Quid Pro-Quo...". Or the Donald on the phone to the Ukrainian Prime Minister...
In any event it would be extraordinarily selfish and ungracious of me to refuse her recommendation, and regardless of my opinions the fact that she's even read a chapter book puts her miles ahead of her peers.
The book, it was given to her when she was last backpacking through Nepal, sort of a "Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants" sort of thing, which I would also like to underline that I haven't read, and now it's making it's way to me, and from me?...
Back to the book. I'm a firm believer that things come to people for a reason, and that if she's giving it to me there's a meaning there that I'll have to decipher and understand. Maybe she knows me better than I do myself, that it's for my own good, or that she really enjoyed it. And - I can't plead off of pop-culture, I mean, I've watched "Rick and Morty", read "The Celestine Prophecy" (Load of bollocks), Malcolm Gladwell (as well), and so - while a bit late, this will be my overdue catching up on popular culture.
It took 2 days to read.
There is a part of me that thinks she's taking the piss, like buying somebody you know tickets to a Monster Truck Rally or Stage West, sort of a wind-up, gag-thing, and I have to invest in it so we're both in on the joke...
Now - I knew, before I read it, had seen it in every thrift shop I've ever been into, seen Gilbert's Ted talk, read the criticism, I mean, the reading of the book was an uncomfortable formality that cemented my opinions.
She's won the obnoxious, intolerable adulation of her peers, but by Chapter 8 I've bought in, there's no choice, it's that or suffer a long ride, suffer a mental breakdown with the continual opposition to reason, to intuition, that screams No! NO! NO!, better to succumb and suffer less damage, it's come to you for a reason...
I take it as an opportunity to grow my empathy. I mean the author - I get her, I've met her, not her, not HER, but 10,000 just like her, I'd cross the street to avoid engaging any one of them in conversation, am still crossing the street regularly, running against lights and into traffic, whatever may happen it will be kinder than this...
Empathy, why do I rebel? why do I read? Surely not only for information, it's for the chance to live through somebody elses' eyes, to grow vicariously through another person's adventures and experience of the world. I empathize with Montague Summers, the brilliant lunatic and Child Molester, Alistair Crowley, confirmed satanist, Celine, a goddamn Nazi for Christ's Sake, With the Marquis De Sade, Henry Miller, Bukowski, there's nobody so depraved that if they took the time to write down their thoughts I wouldn't read them. There's no historical record - however old, Koran, Bible, Gilgamesh, that I haven't read and tried to understand. I've been voracious in my reading, hungry, insatiable, then what about this, what about this? What about this do I find so indigestible?
We share the same landmarks - not specifically, of course, but in the general roadmap of life we've been the same places, different times, we've had many of the same experiences, and while I rebel at her style of prose, her over-sharing - and - lets be fair, it wasn't written for me, at me, or for anybody even remotely like me, still it rankles me, her generally well concealed education, her oversharing, her enthusiasm, her frankness, her anecdotes, her humor, her passion, her spirituality, her giving back and god-damned fucking gratitude, her trials and overcoming, her gushing, her tone, every hair on the back of my ass prickles with it and I have to be careful now not to throw the baby out with the bathwater...
Like Malcolm Gladwell, it's find what I can use, find what can help me, 400 plus pages distilled to maybe a couple of pages of notes - maybe -
Clearly I'm not it's audience, my review, irrelevant, it would be like me reviewing a bra for comfort or tampons or any of a thousand other things that I have no use for. Pet Smart's 6 pack of gerbils. Pet Ferrets. Snowmobiles. Ford F-150's. I'm completely and utterly unqualified, it would be like me saying "The Bible, load of shit" - it's absolutely not, and my opinion clearly doesn't matter. But - even as this clearly well-thumbed edition advertises - "Over Ten Million Copies Sold" - maybe I can learn a little from her success...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
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A couple of good looking books, unfortunately on Silent Auction or I might have bought. My reading's been a little dry lately...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
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Reading 2 books at the moment:
- The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols - Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant
- A Dictionary of Symbols - J.E. Cirlot
Both - as fascinating as dictionaries can be, a bit short of plot but that's to be expected. Both right up my alley, and thoughtfully analyze - with respect to Freud, Jung, and a host of other sources all the symbols we encounter in books, art, dreams, psychology, alchemy, magic, science and even day to day life...
Great, in that they awaken you to a whole world of meaning which you were always aware of, but unable to decipher.
Worth considering - that symbolic thought predates the written word, artwork and quite possibly even language. That all these things - painting, writing, etc - are attempts to interpret our most intuitive understanding of spirituality, ourselves and our place in the world.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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I didn't need this. I mean, a drinking buddy with an infinitely more entertaining sex life, which I put down to the fact that I haven't been drinking nearly as long and I'm a little bit more fussy...