Nina
Must return to - a large chunk in the middle you didn't read, because it was too dense.
Some sublime moments of almost ecstasy as I stumbled upon parts that put into words concepts that I have known intuitively but never been able to verbally express. I hope one day to be able to understand the sheer scope of the ideas within her and their gravity for all our lives, and to embrace the paradoxes of truth
I am absolutely enraptured by Berlin. I embark on this book with trepidation, however, because I am just not in the right mood now for all this Soviet stuff.
Interesting although a pop science-y at parts. Author did the best they could, epigenetics is still an ongoing field and little is known. Some helpful protocols with clinical evidence.
“Everything in this world is insignificant other than the higher spiritual manifestations of the human mind.”
Currently reading, recommended by Andrew Hubermann.. Both Freud and Jung were absolutely correct in the importance they ascribed to dreams. Yet this book repudiates Freud, in a way in which I'm not sure I completely understand. An ambitious book in scope, and one that I probably need to re-read to fully understand
Interestingly explains why we cannot remember our dreams - the malleability of the term “consciousness” - why the brain state whilst dreaming is very similar to the brain state when administered ketamine...
This is one of those brilliants books that makes you realise that the dichotomy between (1) subjective, euphoric experiences and (2) “objective” empirically measurable data is an utterly false one
But what is undeniably true is the impact Freud has, and his unique capacity to evoke fairly emotive (I can't think of any other word!) responses from otherwise “hardened” scientists. Robert Sapolsky, too.
Staggering level of insight from this author, who is certainly ahead of his time. His kookiness reverbates from the pages - he is exactly what a Harvard professor should be. Bizarre, brilliant, unforgettable.
Chekhov wrote that Gogol “the tsar of the steppe” might be envious. And here, you see Gogol's influence most vividly compared to any other of Chekhov's stuff.
Like “Dead Souls”, The Steppe is virtually plotless - like an episodic TV show. Its a string of adventures that have no internal connection. It also, like Dead Souls, is infuriatingly impossible to convey in translation (this is always the case with Russian, but particularly so here). The language is the only way to understand the natural descriptions and the human flimsiness.
I have a lot of time for the general idea that books of this sort tend to emphasise. The current healthcare system is a model based on specialisation, which, although it has advantages, needs to look at things from a more interconnected perspective. For example, 50% of patients with immune disease have abnormal neurological biomarkers, seemingly ignored and not part of any of the guidelines on treatment. Or, for example, how this model neglects individuals with mult-systemic disorders, which results in them flitting from one specialist consultant to another, each focusing on a specific symptom, with none of them tying them all together. However, he lost me when he started talking about physics. The area of functional medicine already has to stave off accusations of “woo-woo” ism and pseudo-science, so it is particularly disappointing when otherwise credible authors set themselves up all too easily for these allegations.
Also, a lot of the supplement suggestions aren't helpful.
E.g., “vitamin d deficiency is assocaited with X number of conditions”. Yes, that is in individuals who are DEFICIENT in vitamin D., But it doesn't explain at the mechanistic level how vitamin D supplementation can and will help. It's essential to explain the mechanism of how and why something works so that it is tailored for each individual rather than blindly slinging mud at the wall to see what sticks.
“Why are we worn out? Why do we, who start out so passionate, brave, noble believing, become totally bankrupt by age of thirty or thirty-five? Why is it that one is extinguished by consumption, another puts a bullet in his head, a third seeks oblivion in vodka, and a fourth, in order to stifle the fear and anguish, cynically tramples underfoot the portrait of his pure beautiful youth? Why is it, that once fallen, we do not try to rise, and having lost one thing, we do not seek another? Why?”
Equally applicable to both the Russian intelligentsia and the Russian serfs. Why are we Russians just bred to suffer? Intelligent enough to recognise it, and even intelligent enough to perhaps know what to do, but there exists this insurmountable gulf....
Very similiar to Fathers & Sons in a way. What I like is it sets the scene of these two ideas - which appear to you, as if so self-evident, so logical, so thorough. And those who espouse them have no modesty or humility - to either the possibility that they cannot possibly hope to exhaustively define the entire human experience, nor what the consequences of implementation of their doctrines require. (just look to the Russian revolution)
The duel this dramatizes is among the many conflict of ideas between the Russian intelligentsia in 19th century.
First, the liberal idealism of the 1840s.
Second, the rational egoism of the 1860s, who here, takes the form of Laevsky. A self-styled “superfluous man” (the very kind christened by Turgenev in 1850) and von Koren, a zoologist, and Social Darwinian with a fittingly German name. These are the spiritual Fathers of communism - which arrives in Russia and is received as the sociological, enlightenment equivalent of what Darwinism was for biology.
The closing line - “no one knows the real truth”.
This is a weirdly written book, with a fantastic idea. But why is it written like a rambling blog? It switches from biographical to studies, to a book review... just so weird
“The Cockerel and the Handmill” “Right and Wrong”
In these two tales, the motif of the conflict between the righteous vs the wicked emerges. This imagery draws heavily, if not explicitly, from from the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.
In “The Cockerel”, the poor peasant couple is (predictably) cast in the role of the righteous, while a wealthy lord plays a wicked soul.
“Right and Wrong” also operates in parable. It may be read as a dialogue between parts of the soul - Good and Evil forces - or between God and the Devil.
Unsurprisingly, the long suffering “righteous” man becomes the “King's son” (Christ).
The tale is also full of striking and charming “real-world” details. Such as the quarrelling muzhik's encounters with the three exponents of utterly native crookedness (who echo the three friends of Job, who mistakenly try to convince Job that he must have done something to warrant his fate). Here, they take the form of the serf, the merchant, and the priest.
Another detail: after rubbing elbows with royal family, eating their food and dressing in royal garb, of all people, the uncouth rustic surf “pretty much gets the knack of it”. The egalitarian idea behind this is that the distinction between the highest and lowest classes is strictly a matter of constructed appearances, and with practice, anyone can play the king. This idea could only have sprung from the peasant imagination (this was long before the Slavophile movement that planted the seeds of romanticizing the purity of the souls of the serfs, which eventually develops into the ideas of Tolstoy).
Another motif, one pervasive in folktales, is the conflict between family members. This drives many “fairy / magic” folk tales, particularly - which begin with the hero's expulsion from his home, thus launching them on their quest. This echoes the Biblical account of Abraham, who is commanded by God to leave his birthplace and idol worshipping family, to go to the “land which I will show you”.
In Russian folklore, daughters are especially susceptible to this sort of difficulty. They are typically driven out by the “wicked stepmother”.
The story also features some of extravagant elements of oral style, with the action frequently recounted in “loops”—thus, after he did X, he did Y; he did Y, and then he did Z, etc.—and the bizarre refrain y'know, accompanying nearly every statement, whether the storyteller's, a peasant's, or a demon's.
“Baba Yaga”, “Prince Danila” and “The Little White Duck” all feature the motif of daughter's being expelled from their homes, as mentioned above. These three tales all feature a defenseless heroine, driven out of her rightful home. In “Baba Yaga”, our heroine is a daughter, in “Prince Danila”, a sister, and and “White Duck”, a wife.
In “Baba Yaga”, a stepdaughter is sent on an errand to her auntie Baba Yaga, who is actually an enigmatic shapeshifter who takes on a variety of guises - here, she devours undesirable children.
The stepdaughter's escape depends on her passing a series of tests - showing kindness to various animate and inanimate characters in Yaga's service, who Yaga rules through fear, rather than love.
By winning over Yaga's minions, the girl can hope to return to her Father / husband (its ambiguous) intact.
However, reading “Baba Yaga” side by side with “Prince Danila”, a different reading emerges.
In “Prince Danila”, a young girl flees her home to escape the incestous advances of her brother. She too, ends up in Baba Yaga's hut, but to get there she must go underground (eg: a Hades-like adventure into the abode of the dead). This journey to the underworld is an ancient layer of the tale - onto which the motif of the power sturggle in a peasant's household is grafted later.
If Baba Yaga is not a cruel mother in law, who is she? Why does she actively seek out “Russian blood”, and why does she want to shove her guests into her stove? Is she a demon of the underworld? It may a distant echo of initiation by fire - a motif reflected in the myth of Achilles' heel. Is the heroine already dead when she arrives in the underworld?
In this tale, we should also take special note of a distinct episode in which the two girls, pursued by Yaga, toss a comb, a brush, and a hand towel behind their backs in an effort to deter their pursuer. These rather common items of a young girl's toilette invariably turn into a mountain range, a dense forest, and a great body of water, in that order. This “chase scene” recurs again and again from one tale to another in a variety of forms. The great Russian folklorist V. Ya. Propp saw this motif as an echo of the ancient myth of the giver of fire (a proto-Prometheus), whose flight from the abode of the gods becomes the act of creation of our own world— raising up mountains and forests, laying down rivers and seas.
It is very unlikely, if not impossible, that these tales were scripted by anyone Jewish. It is therefore ironically poetic that this “chase scene” reminds me so much of the Kabbalistic idea of creation. First, God is infinite - and precisely because of this infiniteness, there can be no space for anything else to co-exist among God. Therefore, for something to come into existence, God must deliberately withdraw his presence. Second, that God contracted his presence from the Universe intentionally in order to carve out a space for creation. Third, that humans, distinguished from angels by our free will, are paradoxically (1) less holy than angels, because more of God's infinite light is withdrawn from us in order to give us the space for free will (2) infinitely more holy than angels, because it is with free will comes the possibility to become creators in our own right [“creators” in this context means fulfilling Biblical commandments, thus ‘bringing heaven down to earth']. This act of “creation” is what will eventually bring about the Messianic age. These ideas have been clumsily and inaccurately interpreted by subsequent Russian authors (Dostoevsky being the worst offender), but that's an essay for another time.
This same motif appears in the “White Duck” - in an unexpected form. As a punishment for her misdeeds, the Baba Yaga is tied to a horse's tail and “broken across the field”: her severed limbs and head become features in the landscape. Remarkably, like the myth itself, the witch's physical being is completely effaced and thoroughly forgotten, leaving only vague outlines in the landscape—for those with an eye to discern them.
There is a reoccurring focus in Russian literature on the difference between form and content - most commonly seen in the motif of the virtuous serf vs the morally squalid landowner. The idea is that our material forms (our bodies / lives) and possessions are inescapably finite - the only things that are infinite are values, and the integrity of your spirit and soul. The remnants of Baba Yaga's severed remains remaining visible do not just symbolize her physical death - but signify that after death, the content of your soul is the only thing that remains, and, God, seeing everything, sees this too.
This is a very fun, but very dense, book. The cover and title make it seem very pop science-y, but it's anything but. I've completed neuroscience undergraduate modules and read medical textbooks, and I found it to be something that required my full concentration to really understand. Also, on the title - whilst the book is excellent, I see few takeaways on how to ‘supercharge' your immune system
Takes you through a full chronology of key developments in immunology in a very fun way. It feels like you're there in the laboratory with some of these scientists, as they reach a blockade, realising their previous understand was entirely wrong, and being unsure of what to do next. Yet, it's always at these moments of utter exasperation does a breakthrough occur. It's fun to see how science develops in this almost literary narrative.
Some truisms about human nature can also be observed - that the people who create real, new and breakthrough understandings of something are often initially met with hostility by their peers - people who are uncomfortable with having the framework of their understanding topple over, how real innovators seem to be driven by this inner spark, that persists somehow without explanation in spite of all the external disincentives
I've got a newfound respect for immunology, which is clearly staggeringly complicated and dense.
I really want to come back to this book. I remember reading it when I was 18 just before I came to Cambridge, and it staggered me and blew my mind. It'd be really interesting to come revisit it years later, now that I have (hopefully) become better read, and whether it has the same impact.
I've seen this recommended everywhere. Mum bought it for me years ago, and I never fully got through it. Seems to have stood the test of time.
Platonov was a utopian communist until he was expelled from the party in 1926. His literature reflects his growing doubts of the human cost of the communist experiment. But also Russian history generally - the epifan locks (about the tremendous human cost of Peter the Great's canal building projects in St Petersburg) Chevenguer, and The Foundation Pit, a nightmare vision of collectivisation , where the “foundation pit” of a huge communal home turns out to be a monumental grave for all of humanity.
Brilliant book. I bought it after watching his interview of Andrew Huberman's podcast. This is one of those books that ties together so many different things, all of which drag a person down and remove their ability to live a meaningful life. In at least providing a starting point to begin to identify these things, it fills me with great hope.