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Smoking causes cancer; if I say it causes cancer, am I the one causing cancer? :D If we must challenge religion, we must call it for its real names - which are bigotry, hatred, misanthropism, etc. Speaking against religion is still a deeply-rooted taboo in our minds. I'll say it again...

I can't even understand the need to believe in a Higher Being anymore. Big Daddy is just one word of difference from Big Brother. Believing in a Universal Fairness System hasn't made our lives better. If it was supposed to make life more bearable for humans, I say it has failed. It's pernicious...

With better prose and more descriptions, I feel Candide could have been written just for me. Voltaire's little book about a secluded nobleman raised on Optimism who is thrust into the real world sums up what I, in moments of frustration, think about Mankind. In just 120 pages Voltaire shows...

Promises, promises :mad: I want to see a crazed horde of Islamic fundamentalists burning the peaceful streets of Stockholm NOW! I can't wait another year.

From The Sandman collection, I've read two volumes. Gaiman does interesting things with words and pictures. I have also enjoyed Black Orchid. It's a pity he's commitment to comics is shaky nowadays; he had a gift for them, which I fear has been lost. His novels at first glance don't fascinate...

If you surround yourself with people who only read 'contemporary literature', you will surely 'belong'. To people who don't, you'll look like a literary snob, a pseudo-intellectual, a culture elitist. Three things I am, by the way. I love nothing better than looking supercilliously at people who...

From Turkey, that beautiful Eden of open-mindedness, civil rights and high culture, comes literature's latest great hope :D The choice lacked subtlety. Last year they gave it to an inveterate anti-Bush writer. This year they give it to a Turkish writer when Turkey's having problems with the...

Well, it could be that Scandinavia also produces good writers. I mean, St Lucia and Trinidad & Tobago don't hold that monopoly ;)

Simulacra and Simulation, by Jean Baudrillard. I like philosophy and ideas in general, and was led to believe this was an interesting book to read. I wouldn't know, perhaps it is, I'll just never find out; Monsieur Baudrillard's prose is so obscure I just close the book after a couple of...

I can't say I'm a member of the Thomas Pynchon Fan Club :D Paranoia isn't exile; it's an unfortunate mental illness. Having to flee from your own country because your writings have upset a political or religious authority, and needing bodyguards because your life's in danger, that's living...

Interesting idea :) I'll think about it and get back to you later.

Apparently both: for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values Except of course Mr. Pynchon isn't an exile nor an enemy of anything. He's just a reclusive loon, like several North American writers who are...

Funny, the USA doesn't care what the world thinks, and the world can't take its eyes off America :D

Finished The French Lieutenant's Woman yesterday and let me tell you, I'm fricking glad that one's over! Oh, and I read another 30 pages of Ulysses. Just 500 more to go :eek: Poor Dignam, my butt! Poor me, you mean.

Philosophers used to have good chances of winning: Rudolph Christoph Eucken, Henri Bergson, Bertrand Russell never wrote literature. Camus and Sartre's non-fiction work outweighs their literary output too. I don't think that happens anymore, a pity; I like diversity. Some modern day...

Beer good: I compared Coelho, Murakami and Eco in so far as they both sell a lot and get favourable reviews. Although Coelho is the nadir, I can't say I have much appreciation for Eco either. His essays triumph over his fiction. Genius has certainly influenced several Nobel choices. But...

You mean, besides the fact that they're human beings ;) I didn't mean to say Iran would start WWIII. No one plans a world war, it just happens. And I'm afraid everyone is working together to make sure it'll happen. The nuclear weapons race on the rise again, worldwide hatred for the USA...

Milan Kundera Gore Vidal Salman Rushdie Ismail Kadaré António Lobo Antunes Philip Roth More hopes than predictions :) Muramaki isn't considered a great novelist, I'm afraid. I understand he's popular and he gets favourable reviews. But so is Umberto Eco and Paulo Coelho, and...

Just classics today: Candide, Voltaire Wherter, Goethe The Gambler, Dostoevsky Madame Bovary, Flaubert And cheap!

Ah, thanks, Sofia :o You read Blindness: How do you feel about the bits where both novels cross? I liked to see the Doctor's Wife one more time. She always struck me as one of Saramago's best creations. And when you read The Stone Raft, see if you find any similarities with Seeing. That...