i have tried to read siddhartha before, but i didn't get it, so i've put it down and filed it away to be read another day (something i quite regularly do with books, especially "classics")
everyone i know who has read ishmael has been changed by it. it's simply remarkable.
i'm somewhat shy with strangers in groups, especially with friends, but i am usually polite and embarrassedly talkative to people otherwise
When it comes to a stranger in a group of people that I know, it's a totally different thing. I feel an odd, though overwhelming, feeling of... expectation. These are people that know me to be a certain way, and if I am not that certain way with the stranger... it's wrong.
This is giving way to a reasonable extent, however. Through my latter highschool years, I think I did well to establish myself as a relatively impulsive person. I do things because I want to, and because I feel like it. So, if my intuition called me to behave in one way or another, there are few very close to me that would be surprised at such actions. Or, if they were, the issue would not be -that- it happened, but -why- (this being due to the fact that those close to me also understand that I put a lot of stock in 'gut feelings', and there's usually a reason behind them).
I believe what you say about everyone being affected by the volume. Quinn puts together his case with such meticulous logic, that I often find myself thinking 'Why has this not occurred to me?'. It's disconcerting, but in a pleasant, productive-feeling manner.
As to Hesse... it hasn't been Sidhartha that has interested me in the past so much as a few of his other books. I couldn't tell you the titles now, as that I do not remember them, but if I saw them again I would so... some time when I have some free roaming time that I don't feel guilty using to roam freely, I'll take a look.
Also, have you read much of the poet Kahlil Gibran? We have... almost a shelf and a half of his work in our section, and 'The Prophet' has been reccomended to me more than once. It has not, however, beckoned to me yet... I've picked up books of his more than once and flicked through the pages hastily, and have not had the overwhelming need to stash it and look at it in more depth yet. It's not the right time, if I'm meant to read it.
I do understand, however, your stashing of books for a potentially indefinate postponment of later. I've done it more than once myself. Oddly enough, 1984 is in that pile right now. I was eating through it like brushfire, and was over halfway done when something in me just... shut off like a light. Reading it became a chore. So I put it down, and will need to finish it some time.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2003-08-03 07:05 pm (UTC)everyone i know who has read ishmael has been changed by it. it's simply remarkable.
i'm somewhat shy with strangers in groups, especially with friends, but i am usually polite and embarrassedly talkative to people otherwise
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Date: 2003-08-04 12:05 am (UTC)This is giving way to a reasonable extent, however. Through my latter highschool years, I think I did well to establish myself as a relatively impulsive person. I do things because I want to, and because I feel like it. So, if my intuition called me to behave in one way or another, there are few very close to me that would be surprised at such actions. Or, if they were, the issue would not be -that- it happened, but -why- (this being due to the fact that those close to me also understand that I put a lot of stock in 'gut feelings', and there's usually a reason behind them).
I believe what you say about everyone being affected by the volume. Quinn puts together his case with such meticulous logic, that I often find myself thinking 'Why has this not occurred to me?'. It's disconcerting, but in a pleasant, productive-feeling manner.
As to Hesse... it hasn't been Sidhartha that has interested me in the past so much as a few of his other books. I couldn't tell you the titles now, as that I do not remember them, but if I saw them again I would so... some time when I have some free roaming time that I don't feel guilty using to roam freely, I'll take a look.
Also, have you read much of the poet Kahlil Gibran? We have... almost a shelf and a half of his work in our section, and 'The Prophet' has been reccomended to me more than once. It has not, however, beckoned to me yet... I've picked up books of his more than once and flicked through the pages hastily, and have not had the overwhelming need to stash it and look at it in more depth yet. It's not the right time, if I'm meant to read it.
I do understand, however, your stashing of books for a potentially indefinate postponment of later. I've done it more than once myself. Oddly enough, 1984 is in that pile right now. I was eating through it like brushfire, and was over halfway done when something in me just... shut off like a light. Reading it became a chore. So I put it down, and will need to finish it some time.
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Date: 2003-08-04 12:39 am (UTC)i have read the prophet, and some collections of thoughts and so on... i liked it, but not overwhelmingly so
it took my 5 years to begin to read 1984, but i read it in 2 days... i thought it was brilliant, and still do.