Quote of the Day

"One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." 

— Simone de Beauvoir

Literary Pick (***)

Candide 

-Voltaire

Poor Candide! poor dumb, benevolent Candide!
I was quite shocked to read some of the outrageous things that took place in this little satirical novel, especially a work that was written c1759. Women being raped, sodomized, their butt cheeks cut off to feed starving Russians, slavery, male castration, women having sex with monkeys.. Voltaire really knew how to take wtf to psycho-like levels. I can see why it created such scandal back in it's day, but it doesn't read strained or contrived, it's all presented in a matter-of-fact style which is what made it so disturbing. Makes you wonder what kind of world Voltaire lived in, and what kind of things he experienced..or maybe he was just equipped with a sensational imagination. Comical and sometimes pathetic, I enjoyed this little novella. It was my first experience with Voltaire so I'm definitely looking forward to reading more of his works and philosophy. I also found out he was a deist. A doctrine I  have believed in for quite some time but was too fearful to openly admit, until recently.

Literary Pick (*)

The Aeneid

-Virgil

I'm so glad to finally be over with this book. It seems that any book I look passionately forward to reading turns out to be a dud. I was really looking to recapture the emotions I felt reading  Homer's The Odyssey, but instead I was left feeling the opposite..very much the way I felt reading Homer's The Iliad, which was absolutely torturous for me.

It started off interesting enough.. Aeneas wakes up to see his city being ravaged by the Greeks. Aeneas tries to flee with his family, but realizes his wife, Creusa, is not with him, so he returns for her and instead encounters her ghost..she's been killed. I thought that was wonderful start to the story, however, after he leaves Troy, it goes downhill from there. Aside from the part where he takes up with Dido, It felt like I was reading the Iliad all over again with it's never-ending war theme. Almost the entire rest of the story was about his battle with Turnus. Every single page was pure labor. I hate when I don't enjoy a beautiful classic like this. It makes me feel inadequate.

Quote of the Day

“May God have mercy for my enemies because I won't.”

-George S. Patton Jr.