240721: comfortable book for architects and architecture-interested. coffee table. big. heavy. extensive. many new buildings, many familiar- but then 240721: comfortable book for architects and architecture-interested. coffee table. big. heavy. extensive. many new buildings, many familiar- but then I look at art-architecture books (49). just photos, no plans, little capsule commentary. only in person seen ones in Canada (Vancouver, Montreal) and Hawai'i......more
230801: this is sort of more detailed companion to The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, this is much more narrowly focused, on the Mexica, on the decades around first contact and warfare with Spaniards, but equally inspiring, equally new, equally revisionist image of people popular culture assumes we know so well. the dramatic, gruesome spectacle of human sacrifice, the brave, commanding, tiny band of europeans overcoming indigenous through technology, plague, grace of God...
the author debunks some received wisdom, recasts others, and the portrait of 'these people here' is more truthful, more engaging, though there is no romanticisation of the brutal past or the internecine and group conflicts that predate the arrival of 'those people from there'. humans are human. it is the way in which they express human qualities we recognise our commonality through time and place and peoples. this is easy to read, though a lot of names, tangled webs of relationships, and leans close to convincing even by invention of vignettes displaying the living indigenous, stories that must be seen as fiction, stories that must have been just how it was......more
230726: this is the grand narrative. this is about 5 000 years of global history inif you like this review i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
230726: this is the grand narrative. this is about 5 000 years of global history in 500 pages (plus footnotes, bibliography). perhaps this works best if you remember received wisdom of anthropology, archaeology, history, from 20 years ago. i do. i am part of history, now...
when studying anthropology i recall some dissatisfaction that only by now can be accounted for after some other reading: it is entirely eurocentric, at least on first or second year level, and there was little reference to how people within such cultures saw themselves. and later europeans whom they contacted. this is the 'indigenous critique' that the authors recount, deploy, argue for, in clearing 'civilised' prejudices against 'primitive' cultures. which of course were and are not so primitive...
beginning in the eastern woodlands of North America, there is convincing argument that the flow of cultural interchange, particularly politics, is more from the 'new world' to Europe. there are facts that 'freedom' as political concept, as in the Algonkin, the Haudenosaunee, is unknown in Europe of monarchies. there are the conceptual disconnects between ideas of 'ownership' and how 'money' can mutate into 'power'. there is contention humans have lived through various political forms but somehow in the past 500 years have become 'stuck' in this one that is not working, with huge disparity in freedoms as defined by monetary regimes, this one that is not originated by private property but which is manifest in that form as side-effect...
really really love this book: so impressed, so convinced, that questions rise despite my enthusiasm- as this is survey text created in some ways against popular mischaracterisation of past cultures, peoples, am i missing some essential knowledge? are the authors lonely voices in the wilderness and we should believe those portrayals of human history more ideologically, politically, philosophically, familiar? is this only meaningless speculation because by definition history only happens once, so alternate histories are intellectual games with no 'cash-value'? well, as one of my bookshelves is althistory and on the other i am writer of fictions, which are by definition more or less exactly what they might be accused of (is this only elaborate game, that is how it started), is this ultimately simply fiction...?
200721: there are some beautiful images here, some haunting, hurting narratives, fif you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
200721: there are some beautiful images here, some haunting, hurting narratives, following this unexplained unexplainable incursion of feral children in this small city. with no apparent leader, no plot, they come to terrorize the populace- but who are actually terrorizing. written as if known history, this works to question what exactly are adult expectations of children, what otherworldly place children live, and the inevitable end is presented to focus not on ‘what’ happens but ‘how’....
and when the reader learns how this is a ‘luminous’ republic is heartbreakingly beautiful image......more
091019: concise, sharp, existential, moral tales. too short to be considered ‘novels’ in english, these are just as long as needed. best is the last, 091019: concise, sharp, existential, moral tales. too short to be considered ‘novels’ in english, these are just as long as needed. best is the last, ‘nothing less than a man’. an existential hero against social convention, holds to the core of his self, but comes to discover there are events in life, emotions in life, that must be reckoned with. satiric, horrific, tragic......more
051119: this is an espionage novel unlike most others, maybe closest to le carre oif you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
051119: this is an espionage novel unlike most others, maybe closest to le carre or greene, where what matters is not the acts of espionage, violent, mundane, deceitful etc, but the lives of those who are somehow involved. in this case it is the title character and her husband, she never told all, he never tells all, for he is the spy....
in interlocking narratives, the novel follows how this young man with remarkable mimicking ability, is swept into mi6, how his life is redirected, how his wife patiently waits, but despite historical events recorded this story has timeless quality, this is making do with deceit, with never really knowing even the man she has always loved. the writing in translation is beautiful, extensive, never mistaken. the plotting is deliberate, never hurried. character is clear and not exaggerated...
there are only two moments suggesting how dangerous his life/their lives are, but both are absorbed in the story and so, no spoilers. just to note that yes, it is possible to accept anything eventually, no matter how terrifying, how fearful... this is understated reveal of human possibilities. and in the end, as the end, whatever he did is probably all forgotten. probably......more
181118: literature they dare not call science fiction. i have had some trouble deciding whether i found it more five or four, as i have read it only o181118: literature they dare not call science fiction. i have had some trouble deciding whether i found it more five or four, as i have read it only once, as beginning is abstract, as ending is abrupt, as i look forward to more of his work, i give it four. dystopia here and now and in near future, told from, focused on, the views of loyal brothers against the world... well i have an older brother and this is exactly how we love each other growing up......more
150519: have now read 591 philosophy (now in 2022, 654), 54 bergson. remain enthralif you like this review i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
150519: have now read 591 philosophy (now in 2022, 654), 54 bergson. remain enthralled by his concepts, in fact apply the ideas of ‘duration’ and ‘multiplicity’ all the time. am now, among other projects, trying to read bergson’s work in original french... (later decision: transitions are fine...)
271018: this is not a book but an internet resource i somehow found, so no pages but i do not imagine it is more than thirty thousand words. this is a five. if you are interested in philosophy, if you read philosophy, if you do not mind translation on translation, if you really love the ways explored by bergson. so maybe it is a five just for me...
this is an explication of the entirety of bergson’s thought, from his first work (in english translation known as ‘time and free will’) through his major second work (‘matter and memory’) to his final masterpiece (‘creative evolution’). she works from either original texts or Spanish translations, she knows about ninety years since philosophy as she writes in 2014, she is lucid, she is critical, she recounts the background of his philosophy of intelligence’ in great depth, touching on all his major themes and how they lead his thought: quantity and quality, space and time, intellect and intuition, knowing from outside, feeling from within, and so on... she focuses on the evolutionary rise of intelligence and how it is cut from the same cloth as instinct, how neither ultimately leads to complete human living in the world. she shows that bergson believes in close sensory perception first, though in some other philosophies (of course not his...) this sometimes leads to confused intellectual conceptions, in dualism, in dogma... and how, for example, kant has the wrong way round a priori and possibilities of knowledge... (the wrong order, but i do not fully understand)...
i am not a philosopher of any particular sort though i have read mostly continental, some indic, some japanese, some chinese, and so my interests drift according to curiosity. i once read Bergsonism by deleuze but did not get it. i read other philosophy. i came back through mereau-ponty, reread it, read more bersgon and deleuze and now several years later i will read ‘virtually’ anything by or on bergson. he has become great resource, i can see his ideas everywhere acknowledged or not, maybe interpret him in japanese philosophy etc. i love bergson’s thoughts. i am pleased to read much more contemporary work on his ideas. i like his valorization of intuition and sense of time and memory and matter and spirit...
i cannot pretend to intellectually understand or intuitively perceive all bergson’s thoughts, but as more artist than professional philosopher, this lack is more inspiring than frustrating. i have read much philosophy (570), much bergson (52), but i do not argue, i do not claim, i do not promote, i simply enjoy entertaining these thoughts... i really enjoyed this virtual text...
131018: beautiful, brief, effective, meditation on love and all the ways through our lives, through others, each of us are trying to find promised tra131018: beautiful, brief, effective, meditation on love and all the ways through our lives, through others, each of us are trying to find promised transcendence as perhaps can only be truly affirmed by dying with, dying for, dying because the other does, and all other aspects of life are ultimately subservient to this urge, this desire, not necessarily for any other, but maybe for oneself, maybe for somehow surviving eventual or immediate inevitable death. this is short, mature, complex, romantic, but never difficult to read even as it never leaves consciousness of our narrator......more
250318: set in spain. so it reminds me of recent spanish horror films (the orphanage, the others, pan's labyrinth...), the kind i like- there is somet250318: set in spain. so it reminds me of recent spanish horror films (the orphanage, the others, pan's labyrinth...), the kind i like- there is something just wrong, subtle but absolute, buried history, inescapable, progressively absorbing central protagonist. slowly. i enjoyed this far too much, read it in one sitting. the final 'reveal' haunts the reader as much as protagonist......more
050218: it has been years (decades...) since first read (trans. smollett) but it isif you like this review i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
050218: it has been years (decades...) since first read (trans. smollett) but it is not likely i would forget this comic epic, and though i have a more recent, approved one (grossman) i have to read... i keep finding other books to read. then i saw this. amazed he cut it down, edited it, so far- yet retained much of the plot, characters, comic and tragic, aspects i recall. i understand how cervantes can occupy similar place in spanish literature as shakespeare does in english. i know book 2 has even more postmodernism/meta before there was modernism, but i still prefer book 1, in which don quixote is simply deluded rather than elaborately deceived... and here is to hoping there is a little bit of the sorry-faced knight in all of us as there is the naive but loyal fool in sancho panza......more
291218: i decided tonight, when i needed a break from reading, i would check out wif you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
291218: i decided tonight, when i needed a break from reading, i would check out whatever reviews i have written, gradually deciding i should ensure i review my favorites. after all, i did give them all fives. and so maybe before forgetting details...
and so. yes i have forgotten details, absurd as i read this only last august. but i read a lot. i can only give impression of reading remembered: so i had read marias before, some critics said he rather than bolano should have won the nobel. maybe so. what short work i have read of bolano has not encouraged me to read that big one everyone else here at least, seem to have read. on the other, what i did read before of marias in his big work, also did not encourage me...but i read some i really liked and so when it was there i decided to pick it up...
it has been years since i read macbeth, so the title did not alert me. it should. i have done some things maybe not admirable but well, i just wish my mom has never heard of them... and so i did recognize the urge to confess. if you do not want to learn this in life, learn this here. even if it is not so dramatic as in this narrative, there are things you really should only delay forgiveness or redemption til you are dead. sometimes i wish i was catholic or believed in god or was too cynical to care, but do not ask those in your life to know what they do not know. simple unfortunately too common example: stepping out on your wife/husband/partner/significant other.. if she does not know, why do you tell her, why hurt her with what she does not need to know, why but you think her forgiveness means you can relax? no. you did whatever. you deal with it. read this book if you still want to confess......more
290117: fascinating close inspection of 'hyper-realism' painting, sort of well knoif you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
290117: fascinating close inspection of 'hyper-realism' painting, sort of well known from the 1960 on in America, that can be seen as a response to non-figurative abstract expressionist, and pop-art. Estes is careful drafting, realistic, mostly urban, environments. this is a catalog of a show mounted in Italy, Spain, US, so accompanying essays are translated. colour reproductions are great. apparently he moved to use many photographs of sites, drew images, inspired by commercial art he had done, by lack of models, and the images of crowded New York are almost all empty of 'anecdotal' figures, though he found purely abstract work boring, pop-art 'silly'. his work is not simply representation: one point noted is that the human eye, the photograph lense, focuses either on the glass or surface, or subject seen through or reflected on- not both at the same time, which he does in layers, so you see both. some great images. essentially 'landscapes' with urban sites, made abstract, precise, luminous, in shop glass, in mirrors, in all reflected surfaces... why i like both this and say Ad Reinhardt is not clear. simply enjoy......more
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