John > Recent Status Updates

Difficult to follow but at the same time enticing. I have read that Borges had too much to read and this explains his adventurous writing. In other books I find myself searching for the definitions of words but with this book, I find myself reading Wikipedia biographies and articles to catch all the references alluded to.

This book is an arcana and I know I totally don't fully grasp the meaning.

It's really cumbersome for me to read Jorge as I need to research many references.

Dense! Is it greed or grievance that causes the numerous wars in sub Saharan Africa? Or is it a combination of both? The authors agree that it's both but clearly greed is the ladder to all the chaos.

In Somali it is the greed is in the clans fighting to control the most productive resources(deegan) which is mostly fertile land in Jubbaland.

I am surprised the Hargeisa Holocaust was not discussed here.

I am reading both the Gĩkũyũ and English versions so that I can learn to read out Gĩkũyũ. I am not yet conversational in Gĩkũyũ and I have to say most of the words are vocab to me. I have literally written 50 words down to find their meanings later and I am only in chapter 3. I love the narration and wonder how epic it must feel listening to this being spoken.

It's really interesting to know why some male birds are brightly colored. It seems that everything I have read to this point was a ladder to understand that. Ok, but Dawkins asks why the modern man is drab unlike the male birds? Why the modern woman signals beauty more than the man?

Chapter 9 "Battle of the sexes" has been the most interesting for me.

I just finished Godfrey Muriuki's 'A History Of The Kikuyu 1500-1900' before I started Petals Of Blood and through almost every page, I appreciate that I read it. The subtext for this book is in there. Especially the second to last chapter in Muriuki's book where he elaborates on the prelude to British rule.

Petals Of Blood feels like a continuation of the history of Kikuyuland and Kenya too, during colonial rule.

The introduction is so dense and so I believe the book will be elaborate in the history.