The theme of loss in Never Let Me Go

27/03/2022 I still remember the moment I read the last line- I quietly closed the book, looked up at the empty wall opposite to me, sighed deeply and kept staring for several minutes straight with tears rolling down my cheeks. Honestly, it wouldn't be a stretch to call this an emotional book, given you are …

Distorted identities and the existential struggle in The White Castle

22/03/2022 Published in 1985, The White Castle is a post-modern tale of ambiguous and murky consciousness, identity and reality. What looks like a novel themed on doppelgänger, has been packed by Orhan Pamuk, the recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, with deeply existential questions. Today, let's dive into some of the major existential …

The theme of death and acceptance in The Death of Ivan Ilyich

19/03/2022 A few months ago, I posted about death and in it, I mentioned this novella by Leo Tolstoy, which tries to grapple with the idea of death. I've been fascinated and troubled with the question of death for a long time now which has resulted in a lot of reading and thinking. Any enquiry …

The Brothers Karamazov: Ivan’s Hypothesis on Morality and Immortality

07/01/2022 Without immortality there can be no virtue. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov, the intellectual atheist doesn't believe in God. In a conversation that takes place in a certain hermitage of Elder Zosima, Pyotr Aleksandrovich states Ivan's hypothesis which he had given expression in a gathering, a few days before. The Brothers …

The theme of fate in Kafka on the Shore

23/10/2021 Throughout the book, the one thing that screamed loud and clear was the inevitability of fate. Whether or not, this fate truly existed was beyond question, rather, it was irrelevant. What mattered was the faith in fate, the belief that there is a destined path for everyone and whatever one may do, they cannot …

Co-existence

28/09/2021 #4 My exterior weathers down into a heap of flaxen-hued shame to reveal a dishevelled, broken home. O mother tell me, how do welie down to sleep, next to each other, covering our-selves in resentment, knowing that tomorrow won't be any different? Our world is smaller than the kitchen you spendyour days in, soot …

the death of you

19/09/2021 #3 strange, how you lie ashen, beneath an archaic river,the millions of hydrogen & oxygen atoms sharing your warmth, your decay in mere memory, lending& taking meaning away, the world still goes on crooning songs of painful continuity, evermore,on & on & on, time flowing endlessly, sourness stored inside shameful mirth of people yet …

On Death and Dying

14/09/2021 The one thing constant in the whole lifetime of anyone, is the terrible knowledge of fast approaching death. Death looms large on our consciousness and we spend each day cheating it, trying to find a way to stay alive, even if we don't want to. Personally, death scares me and it has a lot …

you look like me

12/09/2021 #2 your reprimanding eyes / scorch my pride when i say, i don't believe in your god. / when i tell you, i lost my faith eons ago, / when i insist i worship someone else's body now. your sentimentality almost feels like violence / the way you carve out your soul to give …

and I love too,that love soon might end, be known in its aching

10/09/2021 I've been wanting to talk about this for a while. No doubt it's difficult because I can't seem to find the right combination of words to give any meaning to the emotions I feel. In the past few years, I have undergone, perhaps, a drastic change, if that's the right word. Words soon lose …