Good Reads, July 2025: diverse classics

Good day to you, disciple in the art of literature, life, and the alchemic mix of everything... hereby some reading tips.

You see that book depicted at the head of this entry... it is King Lear... and I'd say, this is an excellent cover design... in this current Penguin edition... I mean, imagine that, sans serif letters all over... and it's a fine play too, almost up there among Hamlet and Caesar... the only thing I have against it is the mood of resignation permeating it... "power is evil, being a beggar is good, living imprisoned is great"...

Vishnu Purâna... rather enjoyable... if you've gotten the gist of it beforehand... like reading up on the plot of a Wagner opera before seeing it. -- This book is endurable wisdom, myth, and some poetry too... "he thought of incense, flowers, and praised the Lord"... -- The compilation might be a bit unstructured, with cosmology, geography, genealogy, and god saga existing side by side... however, each chapter has an ordered structure per se... and the whole book having this a bit fragmentary character is actually conducive to the "good reads" quality of it... "easy reading" it ain't but that absent-minded overall structure is rather endearing, I'd say. And the predominant mood is "royal, power, joy success" (and not "suffering, blood, desert desolation," as in Abrahamitic religions). Therefore this has been my best reading experience this year. -- The Penguin edition I bought from the net is recommendable: the narration has a fine flow, done by avoiding IAST transliteration of Sanskrit (tho I appreciate IAST spelling too, as a die-hard Indologist). The font size is fine; it is neither to small nor too large. The comments are sparse; and as a reader I say that this is great, after having read ISKCON purânas where every verse is commented upon. The marginal existence of comments contributes to the narrative flow.

Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen... I'd say that this is a lefty author mocking heroism and conservatism but still, the protagonist has his moments of triumph... like talking back to the Mountain King... and living the creed of "the bypass", "gå udenom"... Gynt encounters Woman, the Spectral, Fame and Riches and all, in an epic narrative reminiscent of Faust, The Pilgrim's Progress, and Thus Spake Zarathustra... this is Faustian Man doing his thing, with the world as his stage... -- Not super-entertaining but I can understand the classic status it has.

Finally, to read Carl Jung... where do I begin...? -- You begin by going to hell... descendus ad inferno... going into the dark... nigredo... the first step of the alchemical opus... and of this we read in Jung's Psychology and Alchemy, a charming display of alchemy and what it means as a way to wisdom.







Relaterat
Prometheus and Atlas (2016)
Astral War (2023)