Samuel Willoughby > Recent Status Updates

As an aspiring writer, I am finding immense value in his words on writing:“[Literature] is a critical mirror… after that, people can look at each other face to face, and act as they want.” “A man carries a whole epoch within him, just as a wave carries the whole of the sea.”
Writing must “… reveal, demonstrate, demystify, and dissolve myths and fetishes in a critical bath.” Next is his take on Freud.

I didn’t think I’d be encountering so much biochemistry but we move. We thought natural selection was a perfectionist above the surface, but deep down in our cells, it has perfected the ultimate sweat shop.

This is one massive academic article, but I’m loving the challenge. So many gold nuggets for my personal interests in the evolution of culture as well as professional relevance to pedagogy.

I’m just imaging Denzel Washington at this point as the protagonist, and his son as Jaden Smith.

This is a grim apocalyptic, psychological horror for sure, but they hit different in book form. In a book, for a moment, you become the character and you feel what they feel. In a movie, you observe the character. I’ve read many horrible books like that of Noelle W Ihli’s, but this is different. Credit to the author.
I feel what the Man and the Boy experience on their journey, and it’s a nightmare.

Phew this is some depressing stuff

Interesting so far! I should say, however, the style of prose is certainly unusual and requires getting used to. Also the tone comes across really well as I’m reminded of the many depressing post-apocalypse films and novels I consumed when I was very young, especially a terrible bleak 2011 film called The Divide. I don’t know why it comes to mind.

This is actually a really entertaining read, and the writing just works. I can see everything unfolding between these unfortunate souls.

I love how Dostoevsky explores this atypical paradigm where good can arise in bad people, i.e the prisoners, while bad can arise in good people, i.e. the “gentlemen” executioners.

There were some passages from this chapter that were strikingly relevant to current times, as Dostoevsky spells out the poisonous consequences of an indifferent society towards tyranny.

Halfway through the introduction and I’m already intrigued by how scholars were trying to solve the mystery of Homer through analysing its language. The theory of improvisation really strikes me as it almost suggests that the version of The Odyssey we have today, and its events, may be but one possible version of the story since its oral inception. Fascinating!

Just read a fascinating chapter on the origins of a real life Assassins Creed. Mind blown.

What a fascinating and gruesome time. It’s clear the mainstream Western view is deliberately deceptive in its representation of the crusaders, often characterising the Arab ‘other’ as all the traits one would be disturbed to find more appropriately fitting of the Christian soldiers themselves. The crusaders were canabalistic fanatics, much like rabid dogs, all too eager to ignore their military commanders.

Deeply interesting so far. A novel of anthropological style, Dostoevsky focuses on the lives of prisoners in a Siberian labour camp while hiding the semi-biographical narrator from our consciousness. Like the music of Johnny Cash, Dostoevsky wishes to show both the humanity and loss of self in prisoners without glossing over the cruelty of certain individuals and their crimes. Even in hell, humans strive to connect.