John Pilger – Freedom Next Time – Review

This text was a difficult, if not extremely painful, read. Man's inhumanity to man expressed in this book truly goes beyond the pale. We have entered an Orwellian stage in our history, where the world dominance is justified as paving the way for democracy, maintaining our `freedom' through combating `terror,' where the true victims are the innocent, the silent oppressed, euphemized as `collateral damage'.

John Pilger has been chronicling crimes against humanity for over 35 years, his first most groundbreaking story being the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, which was given the green light by President Ford and Henry Kissinger, and supplied weapons by the British. Thousands of innocents were slaughtered, including two Australian television news crews as they were attempting to report this illegal action to the world and paid the ultimate price. The oppression in East Timor continues today. In Freedom Next Time, Pilger examines five examples of crimes against humanity and the effects of economic globalization, where the elites are getting richer and the poor slowly vanishing from the radar screens, categorized as "non-persons."

In chapter 1, Stealing a Nation, Pilger describes the unlawful deportation of an entire people, the island of Diego Garcia, part of the Chagos archipelago, which constitutes the Saloman Islands and Edgemont Island, situated exactly between Africa and Asia. A secret deal between the British and American governments, the British sold Diego Garcia to the Americans to make way for a military base. Over two thousand Chagossian's were deported to Mauritius, dropped off with barely the clothes on their backs, currently living in abject poverty without compensation from the British government despite being British citizens. What is startling is the massive cover-up by the government and the silence of most journalists over three decades, allowing (them) to get away with it.

In chapter 2, The Last Taboo, chronicles the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Pilger devotes a lot of space to this subject, giving a well-rounded assessment of the `conflict,' revealing terrorism on both sides of the equation. One point that should be stressed is that Israel is the leading country in denying and transgressing against numerous UN resolutions. One resolution being the right of the Palestinians to return to their homelands. Between 1948 and 2021, Israel has defied the UN and the International community 135 times, never seen before in UN history.

The effect of economic globalism in India is examined, showing the widening gap between rich and poor that continues at an alarming rate.

Pilger also analysis South Africa since the end of Apartheid; having been banned from entering the country for thirty years, returns to discover that economically not much has changed, and those that committed unspeakable atrocities have essentially gotten away with it. Again, a few are benefiting economically while the majority remain in poverty, dying like flies from starvation and disease.

The last chapter, Liberating Afghanistan, is an appalling situation of lies, death, and destruction. To say the least, Afghanistan is a convoluted mess. According to Pilger, the Afghanis' felt safer under the Taliban regime than the numerous warlords that are currently creating havoc across the country. The unreported innocent deaths from the American bombing (10,000) are a terrible travesty beyond words. However, the true purpose of the "forgotten war," which has been reported by many others, including Bob Woodward of the Washington Post and author Gore Vidal is the `oil and gas junta' as the oil lobby in Washington is now called, building a pipeline through to the oil and gas-rich Caspian sea. This was the true purpose, and the prize has been won. This is an example of incestuous collusion between corporations and government. Who is part of this deal? - a consortium of Enron, Amoco, British Petroleum, Chevron, Exxon and Mobil. Dick Cheney, former Chairman of Halliburton, James Baker, former secretary of State under Bush senior and Condoleezza Rice, once vice-president of Chevron Oil. Does anyone smell a rat?

This a hard book to read as man's inhumanity to man, the appalling lies and silence from the mainstream media, and the amount of innocent deaths around the globe for the betterment of the few is hard to take. Pilger has never held back with the truth, despite numerous death threats over his career, banned from countries, and standing up to those that perpetrate these crimes against humanity.

As a reader of Pilger for some years now, this is his best book to date.

Harry the Magical Cat

 

The feline has been worshipped and scorned since the times of the Ancient World. In Egypt's long history, the domestic cat was indeed worshipped and believed to have a direct line to the gods. When the family cat in ancient Egypt passed on, the entire family would go into a deep mourning period, each member of the family shaving a circle on the top of their heads as a gesture of respect.

As our history moves forward, the domestic cat in medieval times was thought to be evil, an instrument of Satan or the witches Familiar. During that dark time in our history where superstition reigned supreme, thousands of European women were burned for witchery or sorcery – the cats of the town or city were slaughtered as instruments of the devil, and the backlash of this unnecessary slaughter came in the form of the Bubonic Plague, as the rat population, carrying the virus, quadrupled, spreading the deadly disease across most of the continent, whereupon thousands of men, women and children died in the streets.

These day's, it is astounding to me that some people continue to hate cats. When asked why their response is usually vague or simply irrational.

Harry the magic cat came uninvited one day three years ago. My sister opened the front door, and there he stood, asking to come inside. Since that time, Harry has never left, claiming his patriarchal status amongst the two other cats currently living in the home. Interestingly, my sister's other two cats are males and notoriously territorial; they accepted Harry into their domain without so much as batting an eyelid.

Why my sister calls Harry “the magical cat” is he can go outside and come back into the house without using conventional methods, like doors and windows. I have actually witnessed this strange phenomenon.

We'll lockdown for the night, all three cats asleep on my sister's bed, all doors and windows securely closed and bolted. As the house is relatively new, there are no unknown bolt holes or secret exits. (I've checked thoroughly) yet by the morning, walking into the kitchen for that much-needed cup of coffee, Harry is outside the sliding glass doors, looking at me with that famous wry expression. This phenomenon also works the other way; he can be outside, every window and door secured, and walking into the bedroom, and there he is sleeping soundly on the bed.

“Did you let Harry outside last night?”

'No”.

This conversation has occurred more times than necessary; it is now expected that Harry has his own ways, and we leave it at that.

Harry is indeed a magical cat.

Crichton/Preston – Micro – Review

 

Purchased this novel in a second-hand bookshop some years ago for $3.50. Brought it home, and there it sat on the shelf accumulating dust for some time. My hesitancy was that Michael Crichton passed in 2008, and Micro was an unfinished project from the award-winning writer. This wouldn't be Crichton's work but the work of a different writer. Waiting for a newly purchased book to arrive on my doorstep last week, I pulled Micro off the shelf, dusted it off, and began reading on a Friday night. I completed the novel Sunday evening, and let me say, I wasn't disappointed.

 Crichton's style and subject matter are definitely combining real science with nature, prophesying possible future worlds. Indeed, like many of his novels, including the very early ones, written under the pseudonym John Lang, the reader not only is entertained but comes away from the text with a better understanding of technology and science in general.

In fact, many of Crichton's novels come with an extensive bibliography, that can be read by the layman or university level student focusing on the technology and science that concerns the tale. Micro is no different, giving us five pages of references about biology, nanotechnology, insect toxins, chemical warfare, and the influences of science on culture.

Beginning in dramatic and mysterious circumstances, a PI investigates a laboratory in a Honolulu office building. While perusing the building, the man starts to bleed from his neck and eyes. He scurries away for his car and travels back to his clients. Reporting his finding, all three men begin to bleed as well; one of the men appears to have had his throat cut by a razor. For law enforcement, the crime scene doesn't make sense.

We move along to seven grad students at Cambridge, Massachusetts. All of them have their own specialty, from Ethnobotany, Arachnology, (spiders) Biochemistry to “scientific linguistic codes and paradigm transformation.' This last “specialty” is a study in postmodernism concerning language and nature of power. This character is the least likable, and I believe this is intentional and a comic swipe at French political/literary theory. They are invited to Hawaii by a “venture capitalist” to review their companies' developments in these natural studies. An apparent accident occurs to one student's brother, kicking the story into high gear.

I've read Crichton for years, and most of his novels and non-fiction. The novel's beginning is certainly MC; however, the last half has a slightly different writing style. The ending, although exciting, makes one wonder if it could have moved in a different direction.

At any rate, Richard Preston was more than qualified to complete Micro. An accomplished novelist himself, and with in-depth scientific knowledge, the text didn't lose in narrative or technological believability.

Micro is the type of novel one reads while on vacation or on the beach.

Entertaining.

Early Memories & the Moon

 

My first image in this life is sitting on the bumper of my father's car and feeling the heat smart on the back of my legs. I look up at my father, at his charming smile, and the loving feeling of his arm around me, and his handsome face staring forward at the camera, Despite the heat from the car burning my legs, something tells me to endure the pain and let the picture be taken.

The next memory is looking down at mounds of hot, dry dirt. Adults are sitting around on lounge chairs, laughing and drinking. The smell of the earth brings on feelings of home – I'm no longer afraid – throwing handfuls above my head, making mud, absolutely recognising that this will be as good as it gets. Dirt is real; it has the smell, texture and is the core of everything – this is the first time of feeling that I belonged in this world and that it was okay to be here...living.

Scanning memory again, a blue carpet and tiny bits of white particles manifest across my line of vision. The carpet burns my knees. Finally, I hear my name being called out, and seeing a glass brought down to my level, I crawl towards it and take a sip. The drink tasted strange but delicious as I peer up into the glass at the white bubbles, smelling the bitterness of the liquid as it travels up my nose, a wonderful sensation.

No matter how hard I try to remember the little things between the darkness, it is much later, on an airplane, looking out the window at the woolly clouds and below, the perfectly straight lines and shades of the color green. There is no fear whatsoever, but a true excitement that we are actually among the blue and white, flying in the sky.

Memory turns to flashes now, except for the nightmares.

Attempting to re-create these terrible visions in sleep as a small child is difficult. Are they true recollections of dreams or something else?

We forget how lonely a small child's existence can be: left in the cot for most of the morning, hungry and waiting. My trick was to jump up and down like a trampolinest; this action would most certainly bring my mother to make my breakfast. The window was right next to my bed; thus, I could jump higher and higher, up and down, seeing the apartment building across the alleyway. I remember it being a queer sensation, a perception of “now you see it, now you don't.” At night, above the building hung a beautiful, glowing light. As I watched it turn whiter and move closer to me, this vision, this incredible orb, had to be mine for the taking. Why would this wonderful light disappear in the morning? Later, I was caught at my bouncing antics, and my little bed moved to the other side of the room to ensure my small body did not end up in the concrete three stories below.

It was only much later that it occurred to me that the moon could never be mine.

Palestine – the slaughter continues...

 

Opinion

Despite a planetary out-cry against the Israeli bombings on the suburban neighborhoods of the GAZA STRIP, murdering children and civilians, the US and its allies continue to remain quiet or vague in their public responses. As Israel is a client state of the US, giving them 3 billion a year in aid and weapons have also blocked the UN's request to stop the latest shipment of bombs to the Netanyahu right-wing fascist government. The Zionist response to criticism comes from the same playbook they've used for years: “We have a Right to Defend ourselves”. Anyone with a basic understanding of the history of Israel and their oppression against the Palestinian people since 1948 know this excuse to be a lie.

The people of Israel since 1948 have been systematically conditioned to hate Palestinians and generally Arabs overall. Once they leave high school, all must join the IDF for a few years. The children are told that they cannot permit another holocaust like the one in Europe during WWII. It is known that they're also told that the Palestinians are responsible for the German's Final Solution. This, of course, is absolute rubbish but reveals the extent of the governmental brainwashing.

It's no wonder that when the youth of Israel are told that Palestinian children are being slaughtered, and asked for their response, “It's better to kill them early before they grow into “terrorists.” In effect, the youth are told that Arabs are sub-human, thus canceling them is at the same level as stomping on a bug.

As a card-carrying humanist, this flippant attitude about the destruction of human life, especially children, goes beyond disgusting and shows us that the human species has not advanced all that much for thousands of years.

Israel is committing war crimes, and the “civilized” world, those in power, can stop this carnage but refuse to do so. The reasons for this run deep, but generally, American politicians are bribed by Israeli lobby's and depend on them to get into or remain in office.

The United States of Corporations invests in Israel because continued dominance in the middle east is of the utmost importance for continued revenue. Israel would love the US to go to war with Iran, but for many, this is a bridge too far, as the death toll would be far too great. That said, it seems we're heading in that direction.

Israel has been committing crimes against humanity since the State was first established in 1948. The US and its allies have been supporting these crimes from the beginning.

Again, despite the worldwide outcry against the GAZA Strip bombings, destroying news out-lets and whole neighborhoods, the Israeli PM has doubled down, and the slaughter continues unabated.

How can Israel continue this fascist, murderous behavior without justice? Because they have US support and just can.

Israel as a state should have a right to exist, but not at the expense of an entire people.

This is just criminal, reprehensible, and should be stopped.

Brian McGuinness – Young Wittgenstein... - Review

 

Professor McGuinness' Young Ludwig (1988) was the first thoroughly researched and in-depth life history of the philosopher. Over fifteen years passed, and the text eventually went out of print. Oxford decided to launch a second edition, with a new preface by McGuinness, enabling the work to be read by a new generation of readers interested in the rich culture and family that contributed to Wittgenstein's thought and the creation of the Tractatus. In fact, the last chapter of the book is devoted entirely to the Tractatus, which to a large extent sheds new light on this often-misunderstood philosophical text.

McGuinness spent many years researching and composing this biography. He traveled throughout Europe, Israel, and America, studying countless manuscripts and correspondence, interviewing family and individuals that knew the philosopher, many of whom, unfortunately, have passed on.

This is a detailed analysis of Wittgenstein, painting a rich cultural picture of pre-WW1 Vienna. Karl, Wittgenstein's father, was an extraordinary man in his own right, a capitalist of ingenious talent, creating an empire of extreme wealth and prestige. A creative and forceful personality, similar to his youngest son, along with his wife, was at the center of the thriving music and art scene in Vienna, where Brahms, Mahler, and Klimt were frequent guests at the house for musical evenings and group discussions on literature, culture, and politics. Karl Wittgenstein wrote many economic articles for major publications in Vienna and Germany that continue to be read by historians today.

The family, however, experienced tragedy, with three of Karl's oldest sons committing suicide. Ludwig often considered ending his own life, but experienced a spiritual transformation after WW1, (As many young men who survived experienced after the war) was awarded medals for bravery and ended up a prisoner of war in an Italian camp. It is in this camp that Wittgenstein wrote the finishing touches, from the copious notebooks were written during the war, of his only published philosophical treatise, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The biography describes the philosopher's war experiences, his time as a prisoner of war and his eventual return to Vienna, where he gave away his massive inheritance attempted to publish his book, attended teachers college to instruct elementary school and became a gardener for a Catholic monastery.

Unfortunately, the biography ends in 1921, a year before the first publication of the English translation of the Tractatus. I believe in the "philosophical biography" as it can present the family and cultural influences on the philosopher, revealing better insight into the particular ideas and thought processes of that philosopher.

This is a prize-winning biography giving the reader greater insight into a unique mind and unique human being.

Caleb Carr – The Alienist - Review

In 19th century America, before the widespread, and some regard, dramatic entrance of Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalysis, those individuals who studied mental illness were often referred to as “Alienists.” Those suffering from ailments of the mind were said to be “alienated” from mainstream society. The advent of William James' voluminous work, “The Principles of Psychology,” was often used as a reference for these American Alienists, including other notable European investigators of the troubled mind. Caleb Carr has written this interesting “thriller” using the above said, as his central theme.

Doctor Lazlo Kreizler is the main protagonist, an eminent alienist, whose notions on the root causes of those afflicted with mental disease are at best, controversial during this early time period.

Our narrator, (John Moore) is a crime reporter for the New York Times. As an old friend of doctor Kreizler, both having graduated in the same class at Harvard University, he aids the Kreizler on an investigation into the grizzly murders of boy prostitutes that are plaguing the city. Enter Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, however, during this in the narrative, is the incumbent Chief of Police of the city; relentlessly engaged in ridding corruption that is rampant throughout the Force. Doctor Kreizler, John Moore and Chief Roosevelt, are old University friends...investing into the new science of killer profiling, pushing forward in a grand effort to apprehend this brutal serial killer of young boy prostitutes.

For this reader, the first 450 pages of this novel moved along nicely, though, the last 150 pages dragged, desiring the writer to wrap it up and get to the point! The work could well have been 200 pages less than its 600+ bulk. The novel is over-written, with too many added scenes that really, wasn't required for the overall tale.

That said, I loved this novel, as the characters are fascinating and real; the story, too, a satisfactory presentation of the birth of criminal profiling into police investigations, and lastly, the novel's charm...

Israel: Crimes against Humanity

 

Opinion

In the 2018-19 'Great March of Return,' countless Palestinian men, women and children were murdered or maimed, including journalists, picked off by IDF snipers shooting from high on the Gaza fence. From many eyewitness reports, these killings were indiscriminate and Israeli soldiers could be seen laughing and joking while committing murder against the unarmed Palestinians.

The single murder that raised awareness of these crimes was the killing of medic, Rouzan al-Najjar, (see image above) shot down by an IDF sniper while running to aid a wounded protester close to the fence. Rouzan's killing created an international outcry, particularly on social media, forcing a UN investigation into the IDF's behavior during the protests. For many, Rouzan al-Najjar has become another symbol of Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people.

Israeli crimes against the people of Palestine go back a long way. Israel has occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip since the 6-day war in 1967. Although the UN and international community do not support the Israeli occupation, the force has maintained control over the territory. It has “officially” absorbed and proclaimed the whole of Jerusalem as its capital.

In the 1948-1949 Palestine War, known as the NAKBA (catastrophe), over 750.000 Palestinians were displaced from their homes. This land-grab and advancing “settlement” by Israelis into indigenous territories continue to this day. In a word, the people are kicked out of their homes, and in some cases, these Palestinian homes go back hundreds of years.

It has been over 50 years that Israel has occupied the Palestinian territories. In the last 10 years, blockades have been put in place, preventing medical supplies, basic foodstuffs, and freshwater from entering Gaza. Palestinians are prevented from fishing in the seas, blocked by military forces, threatened, and murdered for disobeying.

There are 1.9 million people living inside the GAZA STRIP. It is now known as the world's largest open-air prison. The Israeli government is intentionally starving the Palestinians out of existence. This begs the question: Why is no one doing anything about this blatant ethnic cleansing?

Well there are many reasons.

The US of Corporation requires Israel to exist to maintain an economic and military stranglehold on the Middle East. To know one's surprise, the US gives Israel somewhere in the vicinity of $3.8 billion per year for weapons and whatever else they choose to spend it on. Israel has medicare for all, and the US does not. Go figure.

Israel is the US's client state; that is, by order of the State Dept. causes as much havoc in the area as possible to maintain dominance. Israel is a key player in the machinations of imperialism and Empire. To maintain a semblance of righteousness, the US and Israeli propaganda is thick, rampant, and getting stale. “Israel must protect itself from “terrorists.”” They must “protect” themselves from the low-life Arabs to merely exist. This tactic is to name anyone criticizing Israel for their crimes against humanity as antisemitic. This worked for a while but has been overused and currently is losing meaning.

When we see what the Israel right-wing government has and is doing to the Palestinians for the last 50 years, antisemitism (though it exists) is an excuse for their own racism, obvious crimes, and ethnic cleansing.

The current situation in Israel was bound to happen. When you oppress a people to this extent, there is no other choice but to fight back.

Let's hope these right-wing ass-holes don't do something stupid like 2014; bombing everything and anything, bombing schools, laying waste to a people who have been occupied and oppressed for too long.

Didion – let me tell you what I mean – Review

Compared to other collections of Joan Didion's articles and essays, The White Album, Slouching towards Bethlehem, expressing her political and cultural revelations about the '60s and 70's, this most current, never before amalgam of pieces beginning in 1968, and ending in 2000, focuses mainly on the topic of her writing, publishing and the craft of writing itself.

For many readers, the process of writing, told from the great writers themselves is a possible insight into their craft and their success. In her article, Last Words, Didion writes about Ernest Hemingway, and begins the piece with a quote from the first paragraph of his masterpiece, A Farewell to Arms. She writes:

That paragraph, which was published in 1929, bears examination: four deceptively simple sentences, 126 words, the arrangement of which remains as mysterious and thrilling to me now as it did when I first read them, at twelve or thirteen, and imagine that I studied them closely enough and practiced hard enough I might one day arrange 126 such words myself.

The article describes how Hemingway didn't want his voluminous correspondence to be published or his unfinished work. His widow and executor, Mary Welsh Hemingway, despite her misgivings, decided to release them anyway. Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letter, 1917-1961. The last Hemingway novel, never published in his lifetime, True at First Light, was edited by Hemingway's son, Patrick. He claimed he limited his editing to condensing, but Didion writes, (which inevitably works to alter what the author may have intended, as anyone who has been condensed know)...(p.118) Generally, her argument is an unfinished Mss (manuscript) completed by another will ultimately lose the author's vision and intent. Particularly when reading Hemingway, even removing a comma or a 'and' or a 'but' would destroy the writers' voice, cadence, and tone.

In her essay, Telling Stories, she expounds on her evolving a process as a novel writer and her great personal dislike for writing the short story. At 19 years of age, while attending Berkeley, Didion entered a writer's workshop, Mark Schorer's English 106A. Over the term of the semester, the students were required to write five short stories. Didion ended up only writing three but managed to receive a 'B' for her trouble. She goes on to describe her fellow classmates, all much older, experienced, and interesting, while she had only scratched the surface of her life. In the end, she communicates well as to why she will never be a short story writer but a novelist.

In one of her somewhat caustic and personally honest accounts of her experience when sitting in on a Gamblers Anonymous meeting. Getting Serenity reports on the members' communications as addicts (Didion never uses the word addict) and their insular celebratory rituals to remain 'sober' from gambling. Something struck a negative chord in the young woman when a member mentions the word “serenity”:

Well there it was. I got out fast then before anyone could say “serenity.” again, for it is a word I associate with death, and for several days after the meeting, I wanted only to be in places where the lights were bright, and no one counted days.

This collection of 12 articles and essays shows us, Joan Didion, as a novice writing for Vogue, exploring possibilities, her evolving view about fiction, culture, herself as a woman and her pointed insights about the world. A enjoyable read.

SANCTIONS are WAR – period!

The United States has designated itself as the world's police and financial controller. A country that lies and spreads propaganda consistently while bombing other countries to obtain and retain their natural resources. If they cannot justify outright war, they will put a financial stranglehold on a country it deems their enemy. So when the US announces that they're putting sanctions on another country, what they're really saying is “we are starving out said countries population,” preventing them from trading. We will bully any other country that dares to help with medical supplies or basic foodstuffs. The US is the planet's bully-boy, spreading death and destruction wherever it touches. Sanctions are a war crime, something many have decided to ignore. The devastating destruction from sanctions in many countries is soulfully palpable.

In the last 18 months or so, the planet has experienced a pandemic the size of which my generation has never seen before. Many countries handled COVID 19 well, maintaining lockdowns giving incentives to the people to remain indoors. In countries like New Zealand and Australia, we're virtually living in COVID-free zones. The US was one of the worst countries in the handling of COVID. Thousands of deaths and zero incentive for people to lock down, pushing the virus to spread and causing economic turmoil. While this is happening, the US doubled down on its sanctions on Venezuela, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and more. When these countries needed help the most, the US blocked much-needed medicines, food, and basic resources, forcing as many deaths as possible. This is blatant murder and a crime against humanity.

When you attempt to enter the minds of these deranged regime-change chicken hawks. The goal of economic sanctions is to put as much pressure on the population as possible to rise up against their socialist governments (theoretically.) History has revealed this to be a fallacy. These people know and understand what the US is doing; thus, they buckle up and gain more loyalty for their respective governments rather than rise up. This evil plan, sanctioning countries, and starving out their populations don't work, so why does the US continue this strategy of utter psychopathy?

You may well be able to explain stupid, but rationalizing insanity is impossible.

When I see countries like Venezuela and Syria starving to death with no adequate medicine and medical equipment... my heart sinks, and my blood boils because the US is intentionally causing this widespread suffering. You may ask Why? The acquisition of their natural resources – bottom line: $. Certainly not money for the world's people to live better lives, but the enrichment of the few oligarchs at the top. And if you bring in the argument that the US is doing this for National Security, you're a brainwashed chump. At best a fool. 

People need to realize the amount of suffering the US is spreading around the planet for their own gain, through their 13th-century sanctioning. We do indeed die from bombs and guns, but  starving a country is a slow death and nothing less than full-blown insanity...illegal and very cruel.

Kazuo Ishiguro – Nocturnes – Review

 

Nocturnes is a collection of five stories that takes the reader into the lives of musicians both professional and otherwise, who are at a certain point in their careers and relationships. Although subtle in their telling and mundane on the surface, one comes away with many emotions, including sadness, heartbreak, out-loud laughter, and a greater understanding of how we, as mere human beings, experience love and deal with love lost.

Ishiguro is a master of the understated. One can read through these stories and take little from them. However, this author requires the reader to pay attention to the character's nuances and look below the surface of outward emotions and sometimes absurd actions to discover many things, at times profound and universal for many.

The more emotional of these tales I found to be Cellists. The teller of the story is a sax player working with a band in the terraces and cafes of Venice. He tells of a young man from Hungry who spends his time listening and enjoying the many orchestras and bands spread across the piazza. We come to learn he is a well-trained cellist, who meets an American woman on holiday and changes the boy as a musician and a human being. We can only really guess at these profound changes, but one leans towards the negative...

It has been a while where I have actually laughed out loud while reading a story. In the story Nocturnes I giggled like a schoolboy at the antics of the two main characters. Our narrator is an all-around saxophonist, hitting middle age and living in Southern California. He considers himself to be a “serious musician" who simply hasn't had the breaks to launch him into real success. He lives in a small apartment with his wife and has turned a closet into a practice room, soundproofed with egg cartons and rubber, which he calls the cubicle. He is not an ugly guy; however, he is not a George Clooney. The wife is leaving him for a rich, old flame, who feels bad about him, and offers to pay for plastic surgery to enhance his flat-line career. He hesitantly goes along, and what follows highlights that in LA LA land, one's looks will trump one's talent every time.

Coming away from this collection, I realized how music can play such a major role in our lives. In the story Malvern Hills, though, we see the trials of a young, struggling guitarist who meets an older couple who have devoted their lives to music, only to come to the end of life questioning their choices and perhaps the fragility of their marriage. By putting music above everything else, in the end, was it worth the sacrifices?

Again, reading Ishiguro, the stories, characters, and themes linger for many days. These five tales of love, love-lost, music, and the vagaries of the human heart are no different. 

A extraordinary read.