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Choooooooose!!! This poll is closed. |
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| Siddhartha by Herman Hesse |
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16 | 61.54% |
| Right Ho, Jeeves! by P.G. Wodehouse |
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10 | 38.46% |
| Total: | 25 votes | ||
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Only two choices this month, only 24 hours to choose! Both are free ebooks so it's a matter of what people feel like more than anything else. As always, you can vote for both; this is an interest check more than a contest. Choice 1: Siddhartha by Herman Hesse quote:Siddhartha is a 1922 novel by Hermann Hesse that deals with the spiritual journey of self-discovery of a man named Siddhartha during the time of the Gautama Buddha. The book, Hesse's ninth novel, was written in German, in a simple, lyrical style. It was published in the U.S. in 1951 and became influential during the 1960s. Hesse dedicated the first part of it to Romain Rolland[1] and the second to Wilhelm Gundert, his cousin. quote:Hermann Karl Hesse (German: [ˈhɛɐ̯man ˈhɛsə]; 2 July 1877 – 9 August 1962) was a German-born Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game, each of which explores an individual's search for authenticity, self-knowledge and spirituality. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. quote:A major preoccupation of Hesse in writing Siddhartha was to cure his "sickness with life" (Lebenskrankheit) by immersing himself in Indian philosophy such as that expounded in the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita.[4] The reason the second half of the book took so long to write was that Hesse "had not experienced that transcendental state of unity to which Siddhartha aspires. In an attempt to do so, Hesse lived as a virtual semi-recluse and became totally immersed in the sacred teachings of both Hindu and Buddhist scriptures. His intention was to attain to that 'completeness' which, in the novel, is the Buddha's badge of distinction."[5] The novel is structured on three of the traditional stages of life for Hindu males (student (brahmacharin), householder (grihastha) and recluse/renunciate (vanaprastha)) as well as the Buddha's four noble truths (Part One) and eight-fold path (Part Two) which form twelve chapters, the number in the novel.[6] Ralph Freedman mentions how Hesse commented in a letter "[my] Siddhartha does not, in the end, learn true wisdom from any teacher, but from a river that roars in a funny way and from a kindly old fool who always smiles and is secretly a saint."[7] In a lecture about Siddhartha, Hesse claimed "Buddha's way to salvation has often been criticized and doubted, because it is thought to be wholly grounded in cognition. True, but it's not just intellectual cognition, not just learning and knowing, but spiritual experience that can be earned only through strict discipline in a selfless life".[7] Freedman also points out how Siddhartha described Hesse's interior dialectic: "All of the contrasting poles of his life were sharply etched: the restless departures and the search for stillness at home; the diversity of experience and the harmony of a unifying spirit; the security of religious dogma and the anxiety of freedom."[8] Eberhard Ostermann has shown how Hesse, while mixing the religious genre of the legend with that of the modern novel, seeks to reconcile with the double-edged effects of modernization such as individualization, pluralism or self-disciplining.[9] Choice 2: Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse Stephen Fry posted:The masterly episode where Gussie Fink-Nottle presents the prizes at Market Snodsbury grammar school is frequently included in collections of great comic literature and has often been described as the single funniest piece of sustained writing in the language. I would urge you, however, to head straight for a library or bookshop and get hold of the complete novel Right Ho, Jeeves, where you will encounter it fully in context and find that it leaps even more magnificently to life. quote:The premise of the Jeeves stories is that the brilliant valet is firmly in control of his rich and foppish young employer's life. Jeeves becomes Bertie Wooster's guardian and all-purpose problem solver, devising subtle plans to save Bertie and his friends from boring social obligations, demanding relatives, issues with the law, and, above all, problems involving women. Wodehouse derives much comic effect from having Bertie, his narrator, remain blissfully unaware of Jeeves's machinations, until all is revealed at the end of the story. quote:Wodehouse understood perfectly what he was about. “I believe,” he remarked in an oft-quoted letter to his friend William Townend, “there are only two ways of writing a novel. One is mine, making the thing a sort of musical comedy without music, and ignoring real life altogether; the other is going down deep into life and not caring a drat.” Most great artists plumb the depths; Wodehouse remained fixed, gloriously, on the surface. That was both his limitation and his achievement. What he lacked in profundity he made up for in verbal dexterity. His province was humor: he didn’t trespass into other realms. He came bearing pleasure, not insight. A master of incongruity, Wodehouse left anguish and betrayal, self-knowledge and social awareness to other, generally lesser, talents. http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-genius-of-Wodehouse--2327 This particular novel is the first full length Jeeves and Wooster story. It was dramatized by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie as Jeeves and Wooster, 1990,. Episode 4, "The Hunger Strike." Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 04:26 on Aug 31, 2016 |
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Aug 31, 2016 04:24
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vote Siddhartha because its length is complimentary to my capacity for attentiveness
hog fat fucked around with this message at 14:08 on Aug 31, 2016 |
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Aug 31, 2016 13:49
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^^^^^^ vote for Jeeves because this person asked for people to vote for the other one
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Sep 1, 2016 03:57
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I'm voting for Jeeves because Wodehouse is one of the few authors to ever make me physically laugh out loud.
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Sep 1, 2016 04:07
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Looks like Siddhartha won but Jeeves will likely return in future months.
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Sep 1, 2016 13:21
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