Now, more than ever, this is a book that needs to be read. Continue reading
Archive for War and Peace
‘Are You A Satanist?’
Posted in Observation, Reading, Real Men, Statement of intention with tags Alfred Kazin, Catcher in the Rye, church, Desperate Romantic, Ernest Hemingway, genius, Gustave Dore, hell, Hell's Angels, Hunter S Thompson, John Milton, Leo Tolstoy, Letters to a Satanist, Lucien Greaves, mystic, Newton, Paradise Lost, priest, Richard Flanagan, Satanic Verses, sigil of Baphomet, Spanish Civil War, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, The Narrow Road to the Deep North, The Viking Portable Blake, War and Peace, William Blake on December 14, 2014 by Jarrod Boyle1.
The last twelve to eighteen months have taught me that if you put something on the internet, everybody will see it. People rarely comment on-line, but I seem to get all kinds of bizarre responses when I see them in public, ranging from facial expressions that look like they’ve swallowed a bullfrog (and are struggling to keep it down) to, ‘What’s with all the leather gear?’ Or even, ‘Are you a Satanist?’ Continue reading
Fighting Words
Posted in Kickboxing, Observation, Real Men, Statement of intention with tags A Clocowork Orange, angel, Anthony Burgess, Genesis, Henry Handel-Richardson, Jacob, James Joyce, Kick boxing, Leo Tolstoy, Mark Kerr, Thai boxing, The Smashing Machine, Ulysses, War and Peace, Wilbur Smith on June 8, 2014 by Jarrod BoyleFirst published in Island Magazine, Issue 136.
There are two things I am driven to do: write and fight. Continue reading
James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ – the Warm-Up with Coach Rodney Hall.
Posted in Fiction, Reading, Real Men with tags Anna Karenina, Cubism, David Foster Wallace, James Joyce, Kant, Picasso, Schopenhauer, The Bloomsday Book, Ulysses, Venus in Furs, War and Peace on November 23, 2013 by Jarrod BoyleJ: I guess that’s what War and Peace is about. It’s about what happens when people are forced to cope with the force of history as it’s bearing down on them, which I guess is the way Tolstoy would have looked at it.
R: I’m so glad you liked War and Peace. I knew you would. When you were reading Anna Karenina, you were telling me ‘There couldn’t possibly be a better novel’. And then, there was. Continue reading
Man's Search for Meaning
Posted in Reading with tags Concentration Camps, Gregory David Roberts, Logotherapy, Man's Search for Meaning, Nietzche, Shantaram, Tolstoy, Victor Frankl, War and Peace on June 24, 2012 by Jarrod BoyleWar and Peace is haunting me. Continue reading
Leo Tolstoy Vs. Robert S. McNamara
Posted in Observation, Reading, Real Men with tags Agent Orange, Axis, Battle of Borodino, Errol Morris, General Kutuzov, Hitler, Holocaust, Loe Tolstoy, Napoleon, Robert S McNamara, Vietnam war, War and Peace, War criminal, World War II on May 2, 2012 by Jarrod BoyleOne of the most interesting aspects of reading is that sometimes you might read something and, regardless of whether you enjoy it or not, it begins to creep into your thinking. You start to see it everywhere; kind of like when you’re walking the streets in a strange country and you feel as if you keep catching glimpses of people you know. Continue reading
War and Peace
Posted in Reading, Real Men with tags 'Little Gidding', Four Quartets, Hawaii marathon, Napoleon, Shakespeare, T.S. Eliot, Tolstoy, War and Peace on April 27, 2012 by Jarrod BoyleI finished it. Continue reading
Tolstoy Versus Napoleon
Posted in Reading, Real Men with tags Anna Karenina, Battle of Borodino, Brothers Karamazov, colonel kurtz, Napoleon, napoleonic war, Tolstoy, War and Peace on February 24, 2012 by Jarrod BoyleThe thing about a book like War and Peace that first makes an impression on you is its size. Continue reading
War and Peace, p.242
Posted in Reading with tags Tolstoy, War and Peace on October 24, 2011 by Jarrod Boyle“He told them about his Schongraben action in just the way that those who take place in battles usually tell about them, that is, in the way they would like it to have been, the way they have heard others tell it, the way it could be told more beautifully, but not at all the way it had been. Rostov was a truthful young man, not for anything would he have deliberately told an untruth.
“He began telling the story with the intention of telling it exactly as it had been, but imperceptibly, involuntarily, and inevitably for himself, he went over into untruth. If he had told the truth to these listeners, who, like himself, had already heard accounts of attacks numerous times and had formed for themselves a definite notion of what an attack was, and were expecting exactly the same sort of account – they either would not have believed him or, worse still, would have thought it was Rostov’s own fault that what usually happens in stories of cavalry attacks had not happened with him. He could not simply tell them that they all set out at a trot, he fell off his horse, dislocated his arm, and ran to the woods as fast as he could to escape a Frenchman. Besides, in order to tell everything as it had been, one would have to make an effort with oneself so as to tell only what had been. To tell the truth is very difficult, and young men are rarely capable of it.”
Policemen, Bears and Brothels
Posted in Reading with tags bears, brothels, policemen, Tolstoy, War and Peace on September 16, 2011 by Jarrod Boyle“…what on Earth did they do?” asked the countess. Continue reading