Friday, July 01, 2005

Some of the most brilliant pieces of writings I have read

First and foremost would be the prologue to Betrand Russell's autobiography. The essence of his life penned down on a page. For that matter, to great extent, of most of us. I have pasted the prologue below.

Then would come "Confessions" by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and "Reveries of the solitary walker". A testament to the fire within, of the father of the french revolution.

For the sheer brilliance of his wordsmithy, Mark Twain, esp. his newspaper articles and the piece he had to write on the very week of his wife's death: 'An article humourous in nature', bounded by a contract to do so. If you know the context while reading it, you would note the genius.To relish the same:"The Awful German Language", I have never laughed more.

He is also the only 'wordsmith' I have ever come across.

To read about the madness that lies within men, for the ability to freeze the moment in which the intensity of the human drama reaches its peak, Fyodor Dostoevsky. My favorite piece "Crime and punishment" .

For sheer consistency of thought, over prolonged periods of time, political as well as otherwise: Albert Einstein: "Ideas and Opinions".

The most incredible story I have ever read (perhaps one should not say such things) : "The Life of Pi" by Yan Martell. My sincere thanks to all the Richard Parkers.

And the greatest of anything in any medium at anypoint of time, I have ever read or will ever read: "The complete works of Swami Vivekananda".Incredible.Incredible.

The book that struck me like a thunder from the heavens : "Autobiography of a Yogi" by Paramhansa Yogananda. Investigating further in the 'effect' of this book it strikes people in a binary manner. It hits you hard, or you never get a chance to finish it.Believe it or not.

This piece isn't a contender for literary magnificence, but an anecdote, remarkable and stunning. All in a simple line that is to be read in it's context. The part when Richard Feynman's wife Arelene discovers he has lied to her and her reaction to it. Just a few pages from the start of "The further adventures of a curious character" by Richard Feynman. No one who reads it will ever forget it.

And finally a poem that would stand tall in any measure of comparison you can use: "The Ballad of the Reading gaol" by Oscar Wilde.

***
The Prologue to Bertrand Russell's Autobiography

What I Have Lived For

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

***

1 Comments:

Blogger ami said...

Reading your post, I realised how ill read I am. I pity myself.

The last piece makes me think what I have lived for? Knowledge, nah. Love, may be. Pity, at times. Laziness, guess so. Have too much of inertia...need to shake it off.

Thanks for making me think..

1:25 AM  

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