Wim Hoff is quite the enigma. I have no doubt that he is quite insane and also quite brilliant. It is clear to me that the two walk hand in hand.
ThereWim Hoff is quite the enigma. I have no doubt that he is quite insane and also quite brilliant. It is clear to me that the two walk hand in hand.
There’s something to his words, something true and quite profound. There’s no doubt his method works for him. He has figured out some mental knack to allow him to transcend the perceivable limits of the human body, which sounds a bit crazy, but he can do things most of us can’t and he seems to be genuinely interested in teaching these methods to other people. However, this book doesn’t really scratch the surface of capturing what he does.
Practice is the key. As is learning. And this book doesn’t quite pin down precisely what is needed. It’s like he’s trying to convince us that his method is real, and that it works, but he doesn’t quite show us what his method is. He gives us data and a lot of biography. He tells us how he came to his method and why he felt it was necessary. And it’s very convincing. I believe in what he says. I think he has found something, and he understands a crucial fact of human existence: none of us ever really discover our true potential.
“In nature, it is not only the physically weak but the mentally weak that get eaten. Now we have created this modern society in which we have every comfort, yet we are losing our ability to regulate our mood, our emotions.”
But how do we implement it? Hoff suggests we start with cold showers and that our bodies will eventually adapt to the cold. Afterwards our general fitness will improve. We should meditate and allow love into our life. We should open our hearts and our minds and embrace human experience, true human experience in which our survival instincts become activated. And that’s the key: going back to nature and allowing our adaptive responses to be brought into everyday existence. Life is too comfortable, and our bodies have forgotten that we are animals with drives that are not used.
This book certainly made me think. Unfortunately, Hoff is not the most talented of writers. Don’t get me wrong, I believe he is a very accomplished individual. However, I don’t think this book captures the essence of his ideas particularly well. He is a much better speaker, and it’s a shame he didn’t do the recording for the audiobook version of this. It may have helped clear things up a bit and to carry forward more of his personality. His social media videos are much more powerful and convincing. They make me want to try his method more.
Overall, this book is a curiosity with some wisdom to share. One thing I was shocked to discover is that he is a vegetarian – or perhaps even a vegan – because he never really talks about it much. It helped him form a spiritual connection with the earth and nature. It helped him on his way to discovering who is he is. Clearly, it’s a big part of who he is and I wish he would push it a bit more publicly.
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It’s such a tragedy that two of the greatest writers of the romantic literary era never had the chance to know each other, a chance to discuss ideas aIt’s such a tragedy that two of the greatest writers of the romantic literary era never had the chance to know each other, a chance to discuss ideas and to help each other with their craft: they never got chance to talk and to be a proper family.
Mary Wollstonecraft died just five days after giving birth to her daughter Mary. Mary Shelley would learn about her mother through her writing and through her father William Godwin. She gained an image and an idea of what her feminist mother was like and what she stood for, and this greatly influenced her own life. She did not know her mother in person, but her writing helped her form a connection: it helped her to understand her legacy and to create her own.
Mary Wollstonecraft, on the other hand, never got to read Frankenstein or The Last Man. She never got to see how her daughter’s literary genius matched her own and would even come to surpass it. I wonder what Wollstonecraft would have made of Mary’s husband, Shelley, and his own radical views. I wonder what else she could have written had she lived longer. I wonder. I wonder. And I think she would have loved the work her daughter created: she would have seen much of herself in it.
This book is such an ambitious project. It chronicles the lives of both writers, and it demonstrates how in some ways the tragedy and drama are paralleled across time. Both women had very tumultuous experiences and it shaped who they were and what they wrote about. After the exhaustive research, Gordon is making a very strong case for how much Wollstonecraft influenced Mary Shelley. Her ideas creep across Mary Shelley’s work. And it’s fantastic to see.
Overall, this is a very good book for those interested in the work of either writer. However, it is a bit of a slow burn but a bright one!
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The Age of Wonder is a book I have savoured over many months. I worked my way slowly through it, enjoying every word and every miracle the author captThe Age of Wonder is a book I have savoured over many months. I worked my way slowly through it, enjoying every word and every miracle the author captured here.
Excitement, newness and possibly drove the brightest minds of the age to discover wonderous things. And there is a pervading presence of the unknown, of possibility, of fantastic discoveries that are to be found and ideas that are about to be born. There is an optimism and a sense of intrigue that I feel our current era lacks. There’s energy and there’s passion; there’s power and there’s hope: there is the quest for knowledge and for greatness and the betterment of humankind. There is something truly special about this time.
One thing that feels exceedingly potent in the Romantic era is the intertwining of science and art, of poetry and experimentation. Mary Shelley’s phenomenal Frankenstein is the absolute touchtone of this idea. There were many fantastic works that came out of the time, but for me her novel feels like the defining novel of the era; the one that shapes it and helps create it: the one that evokes everything about the time, the concerns and the hopes, the dreams and the reality: it is simply the romantic novel that was born during the age of wonder that Holmes captures here ever so eloquently.
I wish I could have been alive then, to walk the streets and see the world through the eyes of the poets that understood that eternity can be found in a daffodil and that utopia can be formed once we ourselves learn to transform our habits and become the men we were supposed to be before we fell into darkness, decay, and corruption. And it's ideas like this, that were directly influenced by the developing scientific thoughts of the age.
This is Richard Holmes' most ambitious work. He does not focus on a singular figure or a famous poet. He instead writes a biography about the scientific discoveries of an era and in doing so captures much of its energy and electric optimism and desire for learning and knowledge.
This book is an erudite and scholarly exploration of a truly fantastic time.
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I’m going to review this book without actually talking about it, though I don’t think it really matters.
I read a lot, though I also write a lot. I wrI’m going to review this book without actually talking about it, though I don’t think it really matters.
I read a lot, though I also write a lot. I write short stories, poetry and essays. I write reviews every day to practice writing and to capture my thoughts on certain topics. I even have a 1st draft of a fantasy novel that is some weird hybrid of Avatar and A Game of Thrones that I wrote when I was nineteen. It’s garbage, full of clichés and driven by a lack of imagination. My point is, I read to write and I am always trying to get better. I am mainly a critic, though the more I read the more creative ideas I get.
Somewhere around half way through Joseph Anton I stopped reading and I started writing, really writing. There was a line in the text that stood out to me; I have lost in since, though Rushdie emphasised the use of personal experience combined with representations of the contemporary in order to create successful fiction: fiction that is relevant and driven by real human emotion. I found myself agreeing and began pouring my thoughts into a notepad.
I don’t know what will become of my writing. I may grow board and never finish. I may reach the end and burn it out of disgust or I may actually start to edit it and go from there. What I am trying to say with this review, is that hearing the literary experience of another writer inspired me to start taking things a little more seriously. I have been less active on here for the last few months because I have been busy.
I am now writing a novel again, for the first time in five years. What will be will be....more
Unfortunately, there is a certain stigma attached to Austen’s works. On the surface, Austen is a sentimental romance novelist who writes about love anUnfortunately, there is a certain stigma attached to Austen’s works. On the surface, Austen is a sentimental romance novelist who writes about love and relationships and their place within society. Her stories are often perceived as fluff pieces with the romance always prevailing in the end. But beyond that she is so much more.
Austen is ruthless, brilliant and tenacious. I find it extremely entertaining to read the early reviews she received for her books. The critics who wrote them clearly had no idea of her genius. They, too, only saw the surface level of her writing. All suggestions of irony, bitterness and sarcasm were completely wasted on their deaf ears. They saw her books as instructional, beneficial even, for women readers of the age, for those who “needed” to learn to behave. In reality, Austen completely tears society apart with all its ridiculous nuances and expectations of propriety.
I laugh out loud when I read Austen because I hear the words of an angry women lashing back at the stuffy society in which she existed. Helena Kelly sees this too and terms such ideas as radical, which is a very fair point because Austen was radical. She wrote against the conventions and mocked the bourgeoisie with their fixations on money, status and position. Spend some time with Austen, read her words, and you’ll see exactly what I mean. More often than not the romances she writes up are mere plot devises. It’s her critique of society and her masterful narration which makes her such an excellent writer.
Here's my favourite quote from her:
“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” -Northanger Abbey
And now she's even on English currency:
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So this is a good bit of writing that brings this all to the surface; certainly, worth a read....more
It has been a very long time since I spoke about Shelley, though I have never forgotten anything he taught me. I have carried his words with me ever sIt has been a very long time since I spoke about Shelley, though I have never forgotten anything he taught me. I have carried his words with me ever since I discovered them.
I can honestly say no other writer has affected me so much; no other writer has intellectually stimulated me to such a degree, and no other writer has made me understand myself on a such a level: he woke me up.
Ideas are powerful. And Shelley put a potent one in my head that will always linger there. He made me imagine a world free of all cruelty and suffering, a world where every being is free and perfectly in tune with their environment. His words and ideas are classified by today’s standards as idealistic, romantic, lofty and the stuff of dreams. But do they have to be?
I fundamentally believe that the romantic movement of which he was a part of had a greater understanding of reality than we do today. They saw the corruption. They saw how we were destroying the environment. And they proposed alternatives. They idealised nature. They idealised Mother Earth. And they wanted to save her. If they walked the world today, they would weep. They would shudder with disgust at what we have done. And it is because of that that I believe we need to reconnect with such romantic thought, we need to remember who we are and what our purpose is.
The ecosystem is fragile, and we need to protect it. We need to be the shepherd to the flock, not the harbinger of its doom. And this what the romantics envisioned, Shelley chief among them. Poetry is the ultimate expression of thought; it is the barest reflection of the soul: it is the essence of who the poets were and what they wanted. Through poetry as an artifice, these writers were able to represent the world as they saw it: they were able to find themselves. And, to a lesser extent, help their readers find these ideals to.
This biography touches the heart of Shelley and his poetry. It brings both the idea of “poet” and “man” together, celebrating his life and work. And, for me, it was food for the soul that I savoured over many months.
Gandhi has no energy whatsoever. I think the main problem with him writing his own autobiography is his complete lack of ego. He is too modest. He is Gandhi has no energy whatsoever. I think the main problem with him writing his own autobiography is his complete lack of ego. He is too modest. He is too accommodating. And he is too good.
Wonderful characteristics for sure; they clearly served him well in his role as a civil rights leader, though they make him rather ill-equipped to write his own story. There is absolutely no passion within his writing, no fire, no strength and certainly no sense of long term goals or aspirations within the first few hundred pages. He begins with telling the tale of his youth, a rather non-descript and ordinary upbringing. It’s mundane, full of far too much monotony and everyday trifles to warrant any remark.
It’s almost like he is detached from his own experiences. Gandhi the leader, Gandhi the man who has inspired thousands, did not come across in much of the writing here. He is narrating his life retrospectively, from a position of success and influence, yet this Gandhi does not appear in the pages. There is no sense of an older, wiser, Gandhi looking at the actions of his youth and appraising or criticising his own actions. He does not evaluate the past, but tells it a bland impersonal manner with little emotion. All in all, I found it extremely hard to connect with on any level.
To compare this to the compelling, convincing and rather extraordinary Autobiography of Malcolm X, Gandhi’s words are unengaging. There is no rhetoric or argument to any actual effect. Certainly, he speaks of following a pure and truthful life, though after reading his words I was never convinced with the reasons he puts forth. The merits of such a life speak for themselves, but Gandhi did not convey it here. There’s also no sense of the human struggle, of a man trying to overcome his own daemons and become a better person. There is a certain lack of emotion within the entire work. It feels cold.
It is, of course, worth mentioning that I greatly admire Gandhi. His approach to life was benevolent and inspiring. Humanity has a lot to learn from him; he was an exemplifier of human values we all ought to strive for. Yet, for all his leadership skills, he couldn’t write for shit....more
As far as I’m concerned, this is the only decent biography of Shelley. Richard Holmes writes with stunning detail and clarity. The amount of research As far as I’m concerned, this is the only decent biography of Shelley. Richard Holmes writes with stunning detail and clarity. The amount of research that has gone into this vast book is incredible. I learnt so much about him here.
All reading comes from a personal angle, and, for me, Holmes underplays one drastic element of Shelley’s life: his diet. Shelley’s vegetarianism truly influenced much of his beliefs, his politics, his protests and his poetry. It is such a large part of who he was. Whilst Holmes isn’t openly critical towards it, he underplays its role in his psyche and considers it slightly kooky. And that’s the only reason I’m not giving this book five stars! Holmes ignored it almost (shakes fist in anger.)
Vegetariansim was so much of who Shelley was.
p.s- Sorry about all the Shelley reviews lately! I’m writing on him for my dissertation, and reviewing these books here is the only way I can stay active!...more
The voice of Malcolm X was powerful, unbridled and simply heroic. He is one of the most quotable men of the twentieth century:
“In fact, once he is motThe voice of Malcolm X was powerful, unbridled and simply heroic. He is one of the most quotable men of the twentieth century:
“In fact, once he is motivated no one can change more completely than the man who has been at the bottom. I call myself the best example of that.”
“It is only after slavery and prison that the sweetest appreciation of freedom can come. ”
“I believe in recognizing every human being as a human being--neither white, black, brown, or red; and when you are dealing with humanity as a family there's no question of integration or intermarriage. It's just one human being marrying another human being or one human being living around and with another human being.”
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One of the strongest realisations Malcolm X had was learning exactly who he was. As a political figure, his rhetoric was extraordinary. But I will get to this much later in this lengthy review, for now though looking at his childhood experience helps to understand what shaped him.
As a young black man in America, he was a man without a sense of true identity. His African roots, though still in his blood, were far from evident in his people. The culture he existed in is comparable to a murky mirror. Very much in the vein of Franz Fannon’s Black Skins White Masks, Malcolm realised that the black folk acted like puppets; the way they thought, and the way they behaved, was nothing short of extreme social conditioning. They were indoctrinated with this idea, this idea that the white man was better; thus, they tried to become white, by adopting white culture, rather than finding their own true sense of self. And this is exactly what he addressed in his later arguments after his lessons under Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam.
However, some of his earlier experiences show the powers at play directly. The young Malcolm experienced it all. When at school studying history, the history of the “negro” was condensed down into a single paragraph in a Western textbook. Let me say that again, one paragraph. That’s it, an entire history of a people summarised by a few sentences. Simply put, the history of the black man, at least according to the white man here, didn’t exist until he arrived in Africa with his slave boats. He had no history before enslavement, and this is what these children were taught at school. Chinua Achebe come eat your heart out. Ignorance like this is why he wrote Things Fall Apart. Malcolm was later told by another teacher that he could not become a lawyer because of his skin colour. It’s these kinds of rejections that planted the seeds of anger in his heart.
First though, before he would begin to walk his path, he would make a series of mistakes. I could hear the sorrow in his voice as I read some of the words here. When he was a very young man he broke a girl’s heart, an experience that set her on a downward spiral. You could say it ruined her life. He bought into this idea that white is better and left her for all the prestige a white partner could bring him. All in all, the young Malcolm, as he puts it, was “deaf, blind and dumb” as he walked away from a woman who clearly loved him. He would make even more mistakes as he got older. He became a hustler and a drug pusher, then later a house breaker. He was surrounded by a world of violence. Few make it to old age in such a life, so he had only two possible exists: death or prison.
But who is to blame? I call these mistakes, but the reality of the situation is that they were merely pitfalls. When Malcolm entered prison, it was only because the situation created by the white man lead him to the cell.
And at this moment in his life, arguable the lowest, when he sat in a prison cell bored to tears and full of rage; he realised what true power was and where he could get it: books.
“The ability to read awoke inside of me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.”
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He learnt to read, and did it so often he gained his trademark glasses. After hearing the words of Elijah Muhammad, filtered through his brother’s mouth, Malcolm came to understand the evils of western society. He had become what the white man wanted him to be, so he changed rapidly. He transformed himself drastically. He learnt his full history- that of the African American and then what he could of the African. He embraced Muslim faith, slowly at first, but when he did he became incensed with the clarity it gave his mind. Christianity, for him, became nothing more than a mode of control the white man used on the blacks. It forced them to their knees and made them worship a white god. He wanted no part of it.
When he got out of prison he quickly became one of the most important men in The Nation of Islam. He converted hundreds, and gave many speeches to the press. He was second only to their leader. He worked diligently for twelve years, and then was ungracefully thrown out.
Where did he go wrong?
He didn’t. He never did. He would have died for the nation. He was forced to leave because the leader was jealous and afraid of him- even after he continued to serve him after he found out about his hypocrisy. Simply put, Malcolm put all his faith into a false bastion, twelve years of faith, and he still had the strength to carry on afterwards. He did not let it destroy him. He truly was a great man.
But what of all his hate? Malcolm hated the white man. And from this power he drew his early success. His hate was justified, but it was very generalised. The white man committed terrible crimes in history, but it was also the general man on the street that would stick his nose up in the air and act superior on a day to day basis that would get Malcolm angry. It was out there. It kept happening, but this doesn’t mean that was all that was out there. There were genuine white people who felt as Malcolm did, and perhaps they could have helped each other. But, that being said, I’m not sure he would have been as successful had his hate been tempered at the start. As he once said:
“So early in my life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.”
He needed the white man to know why he hated him.
The wasted potential of X
Malcolm X did wonders for black pride in America; he did wonders for the civil rights movement despite his hatred, but the true tragedy is we will never know how much more he could have done. When he was assassinated, he was at the peak of his intellect; he was at a moment where he realised that hatred wasn’t necessarily the answer. After he became a full Muslim, in the traditional sense, after his pilgrimage to Mecca, he realised that Allah should have been his true guide not the false Elijah Mohamed. He was ready to face the world, this time himself. He was ready to throw his true heart out there. He’d learnt from his experience as The Nation’s number two Muslim, and he was going to put his ideas into practice. But he was cut short, and the world weeps. He is often criticised for his hatred, but rarely recognised for what he became in the end. We will never know how far he could have gone with his Muslim Mosque Inc group. Could he have rivalled The Nation of Islam? Could he have sped up black rights even further? We shall never know, and that is why his potential was wasted. He always knew he would die by violence, and perhaps as he grew older he would have developed even further.
Malcolm X is a contentious figure even today, but he is a man who must be studied to be understood. Hearing his words, his anger, is not enough. We need to know where it came from and why it was born. This autobiography is honest, brutal and, above all, simply an outstanding piece of writing. There’s so much to be gained from reading this....more
I’m not going to lie, before picking this book up I had no idea she even existed. I’ve read numerous biographieWho the hell was Fanny Wollstonecraft?
I’m not going to lie, before picking this book up I had no idea she even existed. I’ve read numerous biographies on the Shelley/Godwin circle and Fanny is a name that has rarely, if only briefly, come up. She is the forgotten daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, and the ignored sister of Mary Shelley.
And that’s the whole point of this work. Todd shows that whilst Shelley was gallivanting around Europe with the likes of Mary and Byron, some people unintentionally fell victim to his lifestyle choice. After leaving England with two of William Godwin’s daughters, Mary and Claire, Shelley left the third behind in a home of coldness and isolation. How Fanny so desperately wanted to go away with them to Geneva and live the same life of freedom. Chance had it that she was never able to; it’s not fair to blame Shelley for this: Godwin prevented it and Fanny herself was initially hostile to such ideas. Her personality did not collude with that of Shelley’s ethos.
But she loved him, a fact Shelley was aware of but didn’t really consider. His doctrine was that of free-love. He did not believe in maintaining a relationship if the passion and emotions were dead; thus, he left his first wife Harriet- much to her utter dismay- when he found a woman who could make him happier. Not everyone can accept this idea. It is semi-bigamous, but at the root of things it puts the happiness of the individual before others. Romantic partners get hurt along the way, but perhaps it would be best not to elope with someone who felt this way when you didn’t. It would only lead to your own pain. But, that’s just hindsight bias- at the time both Shelley and Harriet were in love; it just didn’t last for Shelley.
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Eventually Harriet and Fanny committed suicide. Todd does not directly lay the blame at Shelley’s door, though she heavily implies it. His actions did lead to their deaths, but does this make him a bad person? No. It makes him human. It was the last thing he would have wanted. He was a free spirit, but not everybody else was. His greatest flaw was not being able to see the perspective of the women he hurt. To some readers he may sound misogynistic, but this would be a deeply unfair label. Shelley was, in fact, a feminist. He championed women’s rights, he just failed to perceive that at times his actions, his involvement in his own self-interest, hurt others in the process.
This is a strong account of the women he accidently wronged. ...more
I’m slightly jealous of the author of this. In the introduction she explains how she went on holiday to Rome and visited the grave of Shelley. I thinkI’m slightly jealous of the author of this. In the introduction she explains how she went on holiday to Rome and visited the grave of Shelley. I think I may have to plan a trip next summer…… ...more
Another Shelley related review? I have many more to come. My dissertation reading list has exploded in the last few weeks. I’m not entirely sure how IAnother Shelley related review? I have many more to come. My dissertation reading list has exploded in the last few weeks. I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to get through it all. Every time I finish one book I find five I simply must read.
This is a good introductory biography of Shelley, but it is rather brief. It doesn’t focus on anything in enough detail. It’s like a sweeping overview or a summary of his life without any of the real substance that defined the poet. I’d recommend reading “Shelley The Pursuit” for any serious enthusiasts. This is a good starting point, but it is rather basic. The legacy chapter was quite intriguing at the end, but, again, this lacked depth.
Postscript- I think I’m turning into a Shelley expert. Don’t judge me. ...more
Sean Barrs
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