“Stories are the single most powerful weapon any leader can arm themselves with – they are the currency of humanity. Those who tell captivating, inspi“Stories are the single most powerful weapon any leader can arm themselves with – they are the currency of humanity. Those who tell captivating, inspiring, emotional stories rule the world.”
I’m slowly playing catch-up on all the books I’ve read this year and adding them to Goodreads. I’ve been neglecting my account for a little while, though this was the first book I read in 2024 and it felt like a great way to start the year. I liked this quote in particular and it applies well to Steven’s own story.
His story is one of success. I like to start a year by reading a book like this because it feels refreshing and uplifting. Last year’s was Atomic Habbits, which Steven quotes here and uses the framework in his own journey. The impression I got of Steven here is that he is a driven and disciplined individual who has worked hard to gain his position, money and influence. I first became aware of his content after seeing him on Dragon’s Den, so I listened to his Podcast which I really enjoyed.
In the book, Steven mentions that he knows some people will skim several of the chapters. This suggests that he knows some of them are a little weak. Some of the laws are really great, though there’s a few that felt like mere page fillers and Steven clearly knows this. Sometimes less is more. Perhaps Steven had a word count to hit? If so, I think this book would have worked better if it focused on the stronger laws and expanded on them and strengthened them with examples.
Overall, it's great it parts and there's some really strong quotes in here though there are some weak parts....more
I’ve been listening to the audio book version of this for a couple of weeks on my drive to work, and it certainly has made the journey more exciting. I’ve been listening to the audio book version of this for a couple of weeks on my drive to work, and it certainly has made the journey more exciting.
I do love a good adventure book and this one if full of enthusiasm for the unknown. The plot is a basic quest like narrative in which the narrator, and his uncle, seek passage to the center of the earth via an Icelandic volcano. The descriptions surrounding the geology and natural history of Iceland were superb. Plot-wise the book is very straightforward, but it is this sense of adventure that keeps the story alive.
Some books age like fine wine, and although the science surrounding this has become quite dated, it hasn’t lost any of its charm. I do wonder, thought, how great this would have been to read in the nineteenth century without any of our current cultural and scientific imagination. It would have been splendid! The prehistoric humanoid and primitive vegetation would have captured the minds of its readers much more so. When reading old science fiction, considering how much the genre has grown and developed in both film and literature, it can be a little lackluster.
I did enjoy this though. And I liked how in the end the power of nature prevailed.
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“It is said that humans are never satisfied, that you give them one thing and they want something more.”
The Pearl is a moral allegory in narrative “It is said that humans are never satisfied, that you give them one thing and they want something more.”
The Pearl is a moral allegory in narrative form; it is a revealing and instructional tale. At its very core, the novel establishes that wealth (in the form of a pearl) is not the answer to all our problems. In fact, it can create many more problems than it solves.
When Kino finds the treasure, he dreams of the opportunities it can bring him. He wants to get married in a big fancy church and he wants to send his son to school. However, when he attempts to sell it, he finds himself cheated by merchants (who see him as a dumb uneducated animal) and the object of envy from his neighbors. He finds himself in a dangerous situation as he is targeted by thieves and those who would do him, and his family, harm just to get their hands on the pearl. Kino becomes obsessed with protecting it and protecting the dreams he thinks it can realize.
Set against a backdrop of racial prejudice and a disparity of wealth and opportunity, the short work depicts the rural Mexican experience in the face of a modernizing world. Kino has more decency and respect for others, but often finds himself treated as lesser. He has better values, though for all his good intentions, he doesn’t quite grasp the opportunistic nature of the world. Human greed and materialism are virtues many live by. The Pearl works towards establishing how dangerous and foolish such virtues are.
Overall, it is a very good novel with a powerful central motif. It is, however, somewhat vanilla, and unemotional in its narrative power. The story falls just short of greatness as it fails to capture the intensity of the human experience with its bland diction and expression. The characters don’t really drive the story forward, the pearl does, and because of the brevity of the work they never really establish themselves or develop (until the reversal at the end.)
Moreover, the novel lacks a certain sense of drive and plot. Compared to the complexities of The Grapes of Wrath it’s a bit of a basic story. Indeed, the characters from of Of Mice and Men are well crafted and deeply flawed individuals by comparison. The ones here don’t quite have chance to shine. For me, this is very much a weak novel by a great writer who has done much better. It’s certainly worth a read, but I feel it could be a much better price of writing.
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This is the twelfth book I have read by Murakami and at this point you could probably say that I am quite invested in the author. I think he is fantasThis is the twelfth book I have read by Murakami and at this point you could probably say that I am quite invested in the author. I think he is fantastic, well, sometimes. And that’s the problem, I just don’t find him very consistent in his brilliance. My opinion of this collection only reinforces my point.
The title After the Quake immediately suggests that these are stories relating to an earthquake when in fact these are short stories that were written after an earthquake in Japan and are very loosely related at best to the actual quake. They vary in their themes, optimism, purpose and quality. I consider them quite a random bunch of stories that happened to be written after a natural disaster which briefly appears in the pages. Was I missing something? I just don’t quite feel like these all belonged together or even in the collection.
Anyway, that aside, I liked some of the stories in here a great deal. Others just lacked any weight and were a bit bland. One was suggestive of great and transformative personal change spurred on by the realisation of how fleeting life can be, but it didn’t go anywhere. Another just seemed to be about people burning things on a beach as a from of catharsis. They all remained a little open ended, as good short stories should be. Indeed, a good short story should hang over you and linger in your mind, but not all of them were that engaging in their content. Not all the characters were interesting enough to warrant much thought.
If I sound critical of Murakami, it’s because I know how great he can be. And for me, that greatness only manifested itself in one short story here. It was a story about a frog called “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo.” And what makes this story so great is how uncertain everything felt; it felt real and unreal at the same time: it felt like reality had been warped and that the narrator may or may not have lost his mind. An unreliable narrator is not quite the right label because he believes what he experiences is real, but we are left questioning his reality. It was a clever piece of writing.
For me, this was very much a mixed bag. This can often be the case with short story collections, but I've never felt quite so polar about stories in the same book before by the same author. To invoke a cliche, he has really become hit or miss for me. So I think I'm going to have a break from Murakami for a while. I will read more of his books in the future, but that future will be distant.
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Environmentalism in fiction is nothing new. Green ideas have been represented in literature for a very long time, and I often feel like this is overloEnvironmentalism in fiction is nothing new. Green ideas have been represented in literature for a very long time, and I often feel like this is overlooked.
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring is often attributed with kickstarting the environmental movement in the twentieth century. As seminal as the book is, these ideas have been around for a very long time. This collection of short stories understands this key fact, and it celebrates it. There are a whole bunch of short stories here that discuss ecological ideas before these ideas became popular and formed a movement. And this is important because it shows that to an extent, humankind has always been concerned with its impact on the natural world in some form or another.
These stories come from the first half of the twentieth century, from the classic age of science fiction. And they are very much typical science fiction in their scope and content. Naturally, some are better than others. Phillip K. Dick’s short story “Survey Team” is by far the best. I don’t want to discuss it in too much depth because I don’t want to spoil the plot particulars, but it offers a compelling reveal that highlights how destructive man’s behaviour is. It was powerful and genuinely very shocking. And I think more of these themes will appear across his body of work, so I’m intrigued to see what else he has to say.
There are some very strong stories here, but they don’t all quite live up to their potential. Major authors are put next to minor authors, and there is a stark contrast in quality hence my relative tepid rating and review. They are all linked by a discussion of ecology, in some form or another, though not all engage with the theme with the same level of importance.
I’m going through a bit of an eco-fiction and ecology stage right now. Anything that talks about nature or green ideas, I seem to be drawn to. And I was really excited to read this and to discover new writers who talk about these themes in the context of science fiction. Overall though, it's a mixed bag but worth a read. ___________________________________
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Sean Barrs
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Books:
3-star-reads
(310)
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