The Magic Mountain (1924) by Thomas Mann & the Natures of Love & Death
“Death and love—no, I cannot make a poem of them, they don’t go together. Love stands opposed to death.”
Tag: George Orwell
1Q84 (2009) by Haruki Murakami & the Two Moons
“The continual afternoon rain made the pine windbreak dark and heavy. He couldn’t hear the waves at all. There was no wind, just the rain falling straight down from the sky.”
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Nutshell (2016) by Ian McEwan & Dreams had in a Mother’s Womb
“But lately, don’t ask why, I’ve no taste for comedy, no inclination to exercise, even if I had the space, no delight in fire or earth, in words that once revealed a golden world of majestical stars, the beauty of poetic apprehension, the infinite joy of reason.”
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I Like You Just Fine When You’re Not Around (2016) by Ann Garvin & the Woman who Didn’t Want to Grow Up
“The big question in my mind is not if your mom is coming back. It’s if Pete is, and if I’ll get a chance at having someone like you.”
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The Dark Forest: Remembrance of Earth’s Past #2 (2008/2015) by Cixin Liu & The Future of Humanity
“Suppose a vast number of civilizations are distributed throughout the universe, on the order of the number of detectable stars. Lots and lots of them. Those civilizations make up the body of a cosmic society. Cosmic sociology is the study of the nature of this super-society” (p 12).
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The Three-Body Problem (2006/2014) by Cixin Liu & the Remembrance of Earth’s Past
“She was intoxicated by her brilliant, crimson dream until a bullet pierced her chest.”
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Norwegian Wood (1987) by Haruki Murakami & the Songs of Seeking Love
“Well, to me, that’s what love is. Not that anyone can understand me, though.”
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Why I Write (1946) by George Orwell & the 4 Questions Every Writer Should Ask
One can sense the sheer joy words must have given Orwell when he describes his history with reading and writing, and it makes this reader all the more glad that such poetry can live in the hearts of men and women.
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Fahrenheit 451 (1953) by Ray Bradbury
Captain Beatty, in Fahrenheit 451, imagines how fire is much like censorship, both eradicated knowledge: “‘It’s perpetual motion…. What is fire? It’s a mystery… Its real beauty is that it destroys responsibility and consequences.’”
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*** 100th Post *** WHY I WRITE: Thoughts on the Craft of Fiction (1998) edited by Will Blythe
Writers write to feed that demon-babe who cries out from the misery the world has inflicted upon it. Hemingway and Orwell wanted to use their gifts to help change the world for the better. And the world, I believe, is glad they did.
