Book Review: The Book of my Lives

 Be ready for waves and waves of incessant despair, bitter residues of the peaceful past, and tragedies of life, embraced by the author. 

The Book of My Lives is a collection of essays written by Aleksandar Hemon in various journals, collections, and books, spanning from The New Yorker to the South-Eastern European Anthology, between 2000 and 2012. They are amended or revised, and then organized in chronological order for the purpose of publishing this book. The narrative is flawless. Super-delicious, well-written, with a very visceral narrative that makes Hemon an outstanding author. In the stories, Hemon is brutally honest, sometimes self-deprecatory, and sometimes (rightfully) the opposite. The emotions expounded are very relatable as they are developed from some humane conditions of life that many people at least partially experience or are familiar with. 

So, in brief, The Book of My Lives, is a catalogue of handpicked landmarks that somehow transforms the author's life from serene household to a war-torn Bosnia and from there catapulted to the US, and by some mysterious way, the wings of tragedy continuously hover over, following him up to the later stages of his journey that is pictured as a middle-class life in Chicago.

As a collection of melancholic, nostalgic, war-derived literature, this is a solid read, and I actually found each essay gripping. On the other hand, as a whole, a well-rounded read,  giving me insight or an overview of a life trajectory, it does not hit the high bar for me. I sought that string connecting the beads across these experiences. I sought that overarching narrative synthesized from the amalgamation of these periods. I couldn't find one. But what did I find? 

In this book, I found a misplaced person feeling for his homeland and following the tragic Balkan war unfolding by the second and disintegrating his hometown of Sarajevo. He somehow manages to cope and finds his second home in Chicago as her parents move to Ontario. The routes to these destinations are not clearly explained. But the author's initial impressions are pretty lackluster. The book gives a dreadful picture of the city. There is no notion that this "soup" provided a neighborhood that was at least nominally dedicated to his origins in Ukraine. Is this picture of poverty and conspicuous crime all that represents the city of Chicago? Or are there miraculous ways that asylum seekers, refugees, immigrants, and all sorts of honest, hard-working outliers may have a shot at a better life and social status? 

If you are looking for a wholesome life experience, you should find it elsewhere in Hemon's bibliography. Here, the lens is focused on misery. Life is probably there, hidden somewhere beneath all the drama. Those are not pertinent to the narrative of this book. Hence, the focus is on selected snapshots. For example, the experiences of living in terror and poverty under a socialist regime (1970s Yugoslavia) give an excellent baseline to dig in and further explore and compare with the wild dynamism of switching to a life in a liberal democracy. The enlightening effect of these observations is particularly felt by those who have trodden these dim immigration pathways. However, it is beyond the scope of this book. These are independent images of scattered POV. 

Instead, everything is lined up for a tour de force of nostalgia. The constraints of life under socialism are now packaged as a nostalgic past and an afflicted youth. The West is also not that welcoming environment to find peace and solace. It's all the machinery of life, an experiment in dullness and melancholy. Again, through the cracks of these essays, people fall in love, people travel back and forth freely across the globe, children are born, and family bonds are kept alive (despite a difficult exile). But again, the focus is on death, on bereavement, and on tragedy.

As a student of human psychology, the opacity of modern human feelings has always puzzled me. There may be one simple explanation, partly in charge, and that is the nature of happiness. The sense of happiness and contentment is a bottomless pursuit. These life experiences reminded me once again how much we are indebted to our past, if we still acknowledge our independent identity and have not tactlessly assimilated into a faceless so-called new home. 

It's very good to read autobiographies, comprehensive and complete ones. In my opinion, what makes the genre valuable is providing a thorough picture of life, from childhood privileges, the temporal luxury of living in safety and security at some periods, to tragic, brutal, unfair affairs imposed upon us. That is worthwhile to read. Otherwise, the author adapts a scattergun approach, which only captures snapshots of dramatic despair and opts for a melancholic narrative (which undoubtedly suits the public palate). 

In summary, if you want to read the well-rounded narrative of a refugee's life (with all the ebbs and flows) this book is obviously not for you. However, if you want to read a neat collection of masterfully-written collages of hardships and emotional strains inspected through a bitter mid-life retrospective spectacles, you will find this book amusing.

Pedram

10/30/2025

Book Review: Sleet

The book I bought on a cold autumn night is a collection of Stig Dagerman's best short stories. The book is translated by Steven Hartman. While reading these stories for the second time, I had a better chance to step back and look for commonalities, patterns, themes, and, in general, to better understand the author's philosophy. To address this, I'd look at stand-out stories as an independent entity. These stories are written at various time points; therefore, it is reasonable to represent various concerns of the author throughout his life, from desolate childhood, anxious adolescence to the cold facts of adulthood. Here is a brief one-line take on each of the stories:

The Stories:

To Kill a Child:

The inconspicuous nature of the tragedy unfolding before our eyes. The accident is the scene of sacrifice. The victimhood of innocence before the ignorant eyes of the static machinery of the mundane.

In Grandmother's House: 

An immaculate encounter with Death. The absence of a loved one. A beautiful line is from the grandmother, hearing the voice of the grandfather in the form of a grunt and whisper coming from beneath the gravel:

"He says to go inside. He says he's not sleeping, he's just resting. He'll move on in a minute."

The Surprise:

This one deserves its spot as the first of the series. It is truly heartbreaking. A plot slowly progressing to a dim climax in a setting as harsh as a Swedish winter. The notion of poverty, loss, and bereavement, and a crude patriarchy exercising cruelty on a widow and the child. All the sadness gets worse when you, as the reader, see the brutal experience from the innocent POV of a child.

Men of Character:

The story depicts a chauvinistic view across relationships and the environment. A series of mistrust, betrayal, adultery, abrasive manners, and men and women so engaged with their self-interest. However, as the story unfolds, layers of pathological, chauvinistic undertow emerge. This is a story of guilt and sin and an emotional fracture. But mostly it pictures coarse masculine hubris. As the author put it fabulously, this story depicts "men pregnant with their own honor."

The Stockholm Car:

Again, the rural vs urban, the city vs village, the rich and the poor, come together in an unsavory manner. The subtly hidden in each manner and movement of the gentleman from Stockholm. It is one image that is among the most violent pictures in modern literature, without uttering a word, without raising a hand, and with no gun. The simple neglectful behavior is what hurts the kids (and me as the audience) the most.

Where’s My Icelandic Sweater?

Alcoholism and manipulation are the main themes. The storytelling follows a pattern that was later categorized as a stream of consciousness. Herein, however, we are dealing more with unconsciousness than consciousness. Curiously, the protagonist stirs a variety of emotions in me: from anger to pity, and even sometimes I felt sympathy as the man is afflicted with PTSD of his wife's betrayal. This story is as dark as it gets, and curiously, it is the last in this series. 

Major Themes:

In my mind, Dagerman is a genius and these short stories are oeuvres of a writer/journalist whose lens captured the agony of twentieth-century mankind. There is plenty of literary assets that he denied us beyond his published works. The repeated themes are human regret, the entrapment of existence, being sentenced to lose gradually while poorly equipped to cope, and financial destitution:

1. Existential Burden:

"Time does not heal the wounds of a dead child, and it heals very poorly the pain of a mother who forgot to buy sugar and who sent her child across the road to borrow some. And it heals just as poorly the anguish of a once cheerful man who has killed a child."

2. Fragile Foundation of Being:

Again, the story To Kill a Child is the prime picture of this notion, which is palpable in Dagerman's works.

3. Nordic Despair and Cold Family Ties:

Parts of the stories resemble the existential dread in Ingmar Bergman's movies. The Nordic existential despair in the Winter Light movie. The conflict of belief and the utter solitude we endure throughout existence. For example, in the story The Surprise, a family function and a milieu which traditionally evoke warmth and bond, we read a most heartbreaking and harsh, steely hierarchy:

"His grandfather looked up from the paper, and his aunt let the ladle slip from her hand.

"If it ain't the widow," said Hakan's grandfather. "What you got in the bag? Not a present, I'll bet.""

4. Misogyny:

A prime example, as mentioned above, is the brilliant "Men of Honor". Rarely is a story more aptly titled!

5. Poverty and Social Injustice:

And of course, poverty has a ubiquitous presence in the stories, sometimes married to the children's innocent behaviors in a heart-wrenching fashion:

"Like all children with poor mothers, he was ashamed at first and pretended that he didn't know her. He crossed the street with his friends, parted company, and then timidly made his way back. His Mother sensed his anxiety, and she did not take his hand until they were completely alone on the street."

In conclusion, reading Dagerman leaves one with no surprise why he has been labeled as a Swedish Camus. The writings reek of existential philosophy.

Pedram

10/20/2025

Book Review: Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win

Former navy SEALs Jocko Willink and Leif Babin wrote this book inspired by principles of combat to aid personal growth and improve business decisions. The similarities between war zones and daily life challenges are figuratively pictured in literature and movies (and to be perfectly frank it used to appeal to my taste in art/self-improvement genre).  Unsurprisingly, this book (and similar titles) sell so well. But let's get to the crux of the book:

The first-hand narrative of the battle and rules of engagement from the POV of seasoned seals and commanders is interesting and novel. In my opinion, the book is very well-balanced and maneuvers between a military narrative and a business/life lesson narrative. I might have a lot of issues with military functions across the board but I looked at this book purely from an analytical viewpoint, looking at the main subjects such as war, mission, battleground, and enemy as metaphors for daily life challenges. I don't subscribe to war and militaristic mentality, I have consistently and fervently condemned the military solutions globally. Therefore, I felt the book may be pleasantly interpreted as a philosophical lesson from a context that in essence is not pluralistic and progressive.

In brief, the book's flow can be nicely recapped by the titles of eight chapters:

I. Winning the war within: 

II. No bad teams, only bad leaders 

III. Believe

IV. Check the ego

V. Cover and Move

VI. Simple

VII. Prioritize and Execute

VIII. Decentralized command

This is my general overview of the book:

In a nutshell, the leader should take challenges by the scruff of the neck. They should act confidently and responsibly. They should own it (instead of throwing the subordinates under the boss and looking for scapegoats, see Chapter II). This demands stern faith in the project. If this core is well-seated, the sound rippling effect ensues and the whole team/personnel will follow. 

If the goal is the priority, this keeps a lot of toxic egoism in check (Chapter IV), as a wise leader sees the decision-making on the field as not immune to mistakes and off-the-chart over/underestimations. Therefore, the right mentality warrants openness to criticism and think tank-style pooling of ideas. 

Chapters realistically address the limitations of a leader in the real world. Especially in large companies it is impossible to micromanage every minute operation. This demands a leader choose his/her battles wisely and prioritize (Chapter VII). Also, the leader should cultivate a culture of ownership among subordinates and on many occasions, complex missions demand decentralized decision-making. This needs oversight of course but with faith and trust a team can benefit from this distributed leadership (Chapter VIII).

On multiple occasions, the book underlines the similarities between military battlefield and corporate industrial management. The heavy stress on group decisions and shared responsibilities in a collective effort is a key message for those who want to transplant lessons from war zones to their routines in business life.

Extreme Ownership is definitely not a masterpiece. Nevertheless, it is an insightful and pragmatic book with some first-hand stories from the front lines.

Pedram, December 9, 2024

Picture: Jocko Willink

The Stranger by Albert Camus: An Epitome of Absurdism

I reread this novel for the fourth time after a long hiatus. I remember the previous times it flew seamlessly and I liked the fluent narration with a tang of indifferent air. However, on second thought, I felt there were more glitches in the analytical view of the plot and the protagonist's character. This was especially more curious since the author has the kingpin status in 20th-century existentialism. I found it very paradoxical and inconsistent if you want to take notes in existential terms:

The existentialism philosophy seems to redefine human existence with an emphasis on individual responsibility and excluding the metaphysical approach to human problem. The caricaturesque protagonist in The Stranger is anything but an accountable persona who shows awareness or anxiety of those in existential limbo. In other words, this is not a philosophical indifference distilled through soul-searching and spiritual endeavors. Meursault's stance regarding love, family, faith, death, daily life, job, food, sex, hobbies, and even climate (he loves and eventually misses the Mediterranean climate), all picture a plainly simple mindset devoid of perspective. The plot pictures a series of random spontaneous actions that are devoid of meaning from the protagonist's point of view. That is not the existential disdain following epistemic labor routes. 

Meursault decides to give false testimony in support of a corrupt neighbor, passively accepts a marriage offer, and finally commits a murder in a confused haze with no clear intention. All events in the story are lined up with zero conviction. 

In flashbacks and in his mother's words, Meausault is described as a child/adolescent who was able to create happiness for himself, so he is not unhappy. He suffers from an existential anomy but a lazy type of anomy. Philosophy, ethics, faith, social or individual issues are not of interest to him as far as we learn. He is not bound to the truth as well. So it's basically downright flattened spirit as far as character study goes.  

When questioned about his motives for killing the victim, he seriously mentions "the heat/the sun" caused him toward this crime. This is a masterpiece in absurdism but a preload to the existentialism line of thought, Camus pursues in the successive work "The Myth of Sisyphus". The Stranger as a stand-alone work, is a short story of a lost soul in a confused chorea of meaningless actions.  Hard to say it is anything but a sad portrait of confused pointless state of affairs in human life, or at least this is what the author wants to say.

Book summary: Factfulness

Factfulness addresses ten cognitive biases that can affect and compromise our logical faculty. The book is the work of Hans Rosling, a physician/epidemiologist, and expectedly provides a data-driven POV. However, a knack for storytelling makes Hans Rosling's work more fluid and accessible. Herein I briefly summarize the crux of these ten "instincts":

1- Gap instinct:

A tendency to divide things, and ideas, into two distinct groups with sharp contrast: for example, a word divided into super-rich and extremely poor, stuck in poverty. This is false and data support an income distribution with the majority in the middle-range.

2- Negativity instinct:

A tendency to emphasize the negative aspect of each event, experience, etc. 

3- Single instinct:

A cognitive bias can be described as a simplified approach to a complex problem. When someone tries to analyze a multifaceted problem by studying a single parameter. 

4- Fear instinct:

Paying more attention to frightening things. This dominance overrides rational decision-making. The antidote is rational analysis and problem-solving to understand risks and opportunities. 

5- Size instinct:

A cognitive bias that associates the importance or significance of a phenomenon with its size.

6- Generalization instinct:

The inclination for dividing the subjects into two categories. The underlying cause is our preference for simplicity and efficiency in analyzing complex matters. 

7- Destiny instinct:

A cognitive bias that leads the individual to believe the outcomes are predetermined and decided by fate and are totally out of one's control. This can predictably be a huge obstacle to becoming responsible and proactive in tackling life matters.

8- Single-perspective instinct:

The tendency to observe and appreciate a problem from a single viewpoint. This approach may limit our ability to see the big picture and deprive us of reaching out and using others' expertise. 

9- Blame instinct:

The Blame Instinct is a cognitive bias that leads us to assign blame or responsibility for a situation or problem to a single individual or group. This instinct can be seen in various aspects of our lives, from our personal relationships to our professional and political spheres. 

10- Urgency instinct:

This cognitive bias forces us to act immediately in response to a challenge, even when unnecessary. This cognitive blind spot has deep roots in our evolutionary history. Our ancestors acquired a predilection to react swiftly on the face of potential threats. This bias does not translate to a well-rounded logical method in problem-solving in the human race now.

Pedram July 2024

Image from gapminder.org

Monday, October 9

 Jazz music led by violinist Mat Maneri and the poems by Denver Buston and four scholars from the University of Iowa: Busisiwe Mahlangu, Saba Hamzah, Yashika Graham, Tammy Lai-Ming Ho

I liked the idea of Jazz poetry concerts! Kudos to Henry Reese with whom I had a brief chat. I needed to salute him personally for his wisdom, courage, and bravery! 

I also bought a book from Alphabet City bookstore. This completed the fantastic artistic adventure on a high note: Sleet is the name of a collection of short stories by my favorite Swedish author, Stig Dagerman!

Nietzsche and The Nazis (Book Review)

A very educative read. Touches on a very controversial intellectual of the modern era and how he might have influenced Nazism.
The blueprints are timeless and can be interpreted in any context. The author well describes the antagonists of Nazi ideology:
1- Individualism against collectivism
2- Science, philosophy of reason, and logic against passion and instincts
3- Productiveness and trade against inclination toward conflict and war
4- Individual freedom as opposed to political authoritarianism and top-down leadership
5- Free market capitalism against socialism promoted by Nazism

MUSEE DES BEAUX ARTS

 About suffering they were never wrong,

The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

W.H. Auden

Falling Foul of Twitterati

The award-winning novelist Jonathan Franzen has kicked up a Twitter storm, after complaining on BBC Radio 4's Today program about the impact of social networking on writers' lives.

In an interview with Today presenter James Naughtie, Franzen said the literary world is now so obsessed with Twitter that agents refuse even to look at manuscripts by writers who don't tweet.

"What I find particularly alarming from the point of view of American fiction is that [social media] is a coercive development, agents will now tell young writers: 'I won't even look at your manuscript if you don't have 250 followers on Twitter'," said Franzen. "I see people who ought to be spending their time developing their craft, and people who used to be able to make a living as freelance writers, I see them making nothing and coerced into this constant self-promotion."

It's not the first time the author has hit out at modern techno-fuelled culture's effect on literature. In a Guardian article last month, Franzen asked:

What happens to the people who became writers because yakking and tweeting and bragging felt to them like intolerably shallow forms of social engagement? What happens to the people who want to communicate in depth, individual to individual, in the quiet and permanence of the printed word, and who were shaped by their love of writers who wrote when publication still assured some kind of quality control and literary reputations were more than a matter of self-promotional decibel levels?

Franzen's latest attempt to put the case for struggling writers was met with disbelief and derision on Twitter.

Francesca Main, editorial director at Picador – publisher of the Booker prize shortlisted novels Burial Rites, by Hannah Kent, and Harvest, by Jim Crace – tweeted: "Franzen says it's alarming that agents turn away writers for having too few Twitter followers. It's alarming J-Franz believes this nonsense."

She added later: "Most of the authors on Twitter have a book out far more frequently than those who spend loads of time grouching about it."

The Sunday Times columnist and novelist India Knight tweeted: "Lighten up, Franzo."

Franzen's latest book, The Kraus Project, is a study of the works of Viennese satirist Karl Kraus, a relentless critic of dehumanising technology and the popular media's twisting of reality.

Franzen said: "It [technology-driven culture] gnaws away particularly at my soul because I'm a fiction writer. For something like literature it's maybe not such a great model. You see this in any number of ways – very directly you see the demolition of the independent book business and the brick and mortar book business by Amazon. But also this crowd-sourcing model, everything shared, communal, it doesn't really work, not to pay freelance writers; and most important, the whole definition of literature is that people go off by themselves, develop a distinctive voice. It's not a communal enterprise."

by Liz Bury

pic: Jonathan Franzen speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme

@Guardian

Stig Dagerman: An Elegy

Stig Dagerman has had the touch of magic on my soul, irritably shaking the core with his shockingly direct and masterfully aggressive style. Daggerman epitomize the very simple and defenseless intellectual exposed to harsh reality of 20^th century. Sweden, his homeland was passing a crucial period with much pressure hinging on the low-income working class. Anarchism and syndicalism was surging all across the Europe stirring up the calm nature of region. Joining syndicalism was the fruit of a complicated political/social background which is less dignified in Dagerman's profile. Like all well-known public black-outs, a surging interest in his works has appeared since 1980s and a reward is called to his honor. He was the full-view representative of intellectuals highly affected in the wake of post-world war II era. His writings convey the themes of existentialism via artfully expressed feelings of fear and uncertainty. Imagine Kierkegaard’s level of consciousness stripped of all arbitrary chase for spirituality (Kierkegaard’s 2^nd and 3^rd layers) more focused on aesthetics of social conducts and family affairs. A malicious anxiety woven in the very texture of his words, a hail of abhorrence and rejection (look at his heart-wrenching short story "Surprise"), all and all a very unique, a very uneasy and yet a very modern experience for the readers. Ideologically i must confess i'm against his political school of thinking. I rate the line pretty  premature then and outdated now. Yet I still like him and his works. I respect him as the son of his harsh circumstance, who stands for some principles and express his thoughts artfully.

I think something, still unrecognized or less understood dominate his lines. Some of the features in his short stories and novels are so hard to decipher, like the man himself. Definitely some sorry themes in Dagerman’s family life and emotional conflicts have made the fair ground for his outstanding streak of writing to flow. I’ve spent a number of my desolation days with the highly emotive pulsation of Daggerman’s “Snake” under my skin. Feeling insecure, lonely and hopeless is not a heavenly gift but admittedly transformed into some literary masterpiece, as history has shown.

Pedram, June2013