"The Count of Monte-Cristo" by Alexander Dumas

Alright so I sometimes read classics, and this was the one that I picked up most recently. This book is a lot, there’s adventure and kidnappings and murder and mystery and all sorts of plot devices. What this means is that there’s a lot of characters to keep straight as well. And of course you have to remember things like who is related to who and who wants to marry who or you’ll be very confused the whole time. To top it off, there’s a time shift towards the beginning so you have to remember people from before this shift and after or you miss all of the count’s motivation here. So be forewarned about that, I had to sparknotes some characters a couple of times (which I haven’t done in years).

This is essentially a huge revenge story, which is why it’s important to know the Count’s motivation here, and he goes about his plans veeeeeery slowly. This is a guy who is in it for the long game. He doesn’t outright kill anyone or steal their fortune, what he does is manipulate the people around him and slowly draw a net around those that he wants to ruin. It’s kind of fascinating to watch, which is the whole point of this book.

Of course, the main symbol here is related to religion. Monte-Cristo equates to “Mount of Christ” and is the place where Edmond Dantes is able to assume the form of the Count, he is reborn as it were. The Count also does a whole ton of good for the people that he likes, such as the Morrels among others. He completely disappears at the end, but his second coming is foreshadowed when he tells Max and Valentine to wait and hope for him to return. This all seems rather contrived to me, since this is a guy on a revenge spree, but the way he does it is so “hands off” that many characters reference the force of God in their lives. So it could just be a statement about how gullible people are. Somehow I doubt it.

Anyways, this guy is so powerful he intervenes in what would have been another retelling of “Romeo and Juliet” but makes it so that the couple lives to tell the tale. Literally, these lovers only talk to each other through a fence (hi Pyramus and Thisbe), the girl fakes her death, and the guy is prepared to die. But not while the Count of Monte-Cristo is around! He helps the girl fake her death while disguised as a priest (hi Friar Lawrence) and then saves both her and the guy so that they can be happy and together in the end.

There’s a lot to this book that I didn’t touch on, but these are what I thought were the main points (maybe). Give it a read for yourself if you want something that’s long and has a lot of characters and can really suck you in if you let it. The adventure and intrigue is great, if nothing else.

Ed Sheeran’s New Album “Divide”

Ed Sheeran has turned into a pop culture icon, but what continues to draw me to him is largely his work that does not get popular or put onto the radio. Sure he writes a ton of sappy love songs, but some of his other work is very genre-mashing with incredibly well-written lyrics.

Take the opening song, for example. “Eraser” has a feel that draws influences from hip-hop, but the lyrics call out celebrity culture on all of the nonsense that they promote. He says that “I chased the picture perfect life, I think they painted it wrong.” He also flat out says that his fans would not like the person that he has become as in “If I told my fans the things I did they’d say ‘Fuck you’” and would reject him as an ordinary person. This is like an angry call out post on himself as he talks about the drugs he has done and his life as a famous person. But a thread that connects nearly all of the songs on this album is love’s potential as a redeeming power in the world. He says that “I wish love was a currency and the whole world was wealthy” which is different than the love he always discusses in the songs that he’s known for. This isn’t romantic love or sexual attraction, it’s a universal, unconditional kind of love. Which is a change from the past.

Carrying on through the album, let’s jump ahead to “What Do I Know?” Ok so it might just be me, but the “love and understanding, positivity” part of the verse in this song seems weirdly reminiscent of “Steven Universe”? Might just be me… Anyways this is another song that builds on this idea of music and love as a saving influence. The lyrics here are rather simplistic, it talks about how he’s just a singer who has never been to uni and thinks that through music and love we can change the world. But what’s he know, he’s just a celebrity. He alludes to some protests and almost takes this song in a political direction, but he avoids that altogether. I wonder why, he references specific people in his more hip-hop songs all the time. Regardless, this is a song that reminds me a lot of songs from the 60s about love and peace for all. Honestly, I think we could use a little more youthful energy like that about now, everyone seems so resigned to the awfulness of the world we live in.

Finally the extended version of the album ends with “Save Myself.” (If you don’t have the extended version, it’s “Supermarket Flowers” which is also a really sad song, but a little more uplifting than this.) The first and last songs of any album, here it’s “Eraser” and “Save Myself,” are good indicators of what the artist is really trying to get across here. “Eraser” introduced the fact that the life of fame and fortune sucks, “Save Myself” drives home the weight of it. It alludes to the first song when he says that life sucks so I just “numb the way it feels” (his “eraser” in a sense) with drugs and drinking. But then it carries on to say that he now has to take care of himself before worrying about anyone else. It ends with “before I love someone else, I got to love myself.”

What’s really interesting about all three of these songs is how self-aware he is of himself as a person and as an artist. In “What Do I Know?” he self-deprecates himself as a mere artist trying to give advice about life to others. “Eraser” and “Save Myself” are similar in that they both discuss the pitfalls of being a celebrity and drug use. This is not a level that many other celebrities hit (ok if I hear one more Pitbull song about misogyny without any remorse I’m going to scream) and especially not at his relatively young age when most other people are still partying and having a great time destroying themselves. I’m interested in this turn and want to see where it goes next.

So if you dislike Ed Sheeran for being a sappy pop artist, I get it yeah I hate those songs too. But check out some of his other stuff, because it has a depth that many other artists don’t hit, and that makes him pretty unique in the pop industry.

Study Abroad and How it Affects How I Read the News

Study abroad is a time where you interact with people from all over the world. It’s not just the people in the country you are living in, it’s also other study abroad students from a variety of different countries. As a result, I now have friends on several different continents, and from countries ranging from Japan to Australia to Brazil.

Every time I real about the senseless violence happening in the world my first thought is whether or not I know people from that country and who I have to check on. Suddenly everything happening in the world isn’t just affecting strangers, it’s happening to my friends.

This is a valuable perspective to have, the reality is that every act of violence hurts a human being with a family and friends and feelings. Too often we forget about that and ignore anything that does not affect us personally. In today’s world where we get news from around the world almost instantly, we need to remember that these aren’t just stories, they’re stories about people.

Can we follow a flawed person down a just path?

This is a question I’ve been asking a lot lately. Both in politics, and about myself as a leader. The reality of life is that no one is perfect, and therefore it is unreasonable to expect that from our leaders. But that does not mean that we should not strive for and try to reach it. We still need to be critical of anyone in a leadership position, but we should be somewhat forgiving of their mistakes, especially when they try to make up for them. All of us as individuals are flawed as well, meaning that we probably could not pick, or for that matter create, a perfect leader even if we had one.

Therefore, we will have to, at some point, pursue good with a bad leader. There really is not a way around that. It’s all well and good to have noble aims, but we do need to implement them somehow. This usually requires someone heading the effort in some sense. And there’s no way to find a not-flawed person for the job, as we are all flawed in some sense.

But the classification of good/bad is not a binary, it’s a gradient. So how good should our leaders be? And where is the line drawn for their mistakes?

For me, I think that line certainly changes person to person, but also with their goals and promises. If they commit an error that goes against their aims, then they are an unsuitable leader. You have to be able to practice what you preach. And if they promise to act or provide something and go against that, then they are also out of line there.

So it’s really something that changes based on the situation and the person. But leaders have to be capable of keeping their core values close to their heart. They have to prove that they have some integrity. Personally I also value the ability to admit that you are wrong and apologize for it. There’s no room for pride or an ego when you are trying to serve other people, which is what all leaders do in the end. So yes, we are all flawed, but are you capable of admitting that?

"Levels of Life" by Julian Barnes

Similar to the opening lines, this is a book where “you put together two things that have not been together before. And the world is changed…” Barnes here combines photography, ballooning, and grief to talk about life and love. It’s a combination that I would not have expected, but surprisingly makes sense. That way, levels of life can refer to vertical levels, as well as life versus death.

The first half is almost like a story, where he discusses eighteenth century ballooning and the different figures that came into play there. The second half is the lack of a story, no characters are mentioned by name and it circles around and back on itself to portray the author’s grief at losing his wife. It makes sense, that way you feel the lack of persons the same way that the grieving do.

Despite the fact that none of the characters in the second half are mentioned by name, it is a deeply personal account. All of his musings hit home and yet also seemed insightful into the nature of anguish without ever becoming too specific. It was a moving, if short, read, and one that I would recommend for anyone getting over a heartache of any kind.

"The Architectural History of Venice" by Deborah Howard

Well this isn’t the kind of thing that I usually read. It was recommended to me by a friend as a book that you don’t really need a lot of prior knowledge for, and an interesting view of a very unique city.

I strongly agree with that second point, Venice is unique in that all of the streets are waterways and therefore the infrastructure is singular. It is very cool to watch this city grow from medieval times to the modern day through this lens. There are many images from maps to drawings to pictures of the city itself which is also fascinating, you are literally watching it grow and adapt.

While the first point is valid (I did understand everything that was being discussed) at points I felt that it would be better experienced with just a little more background information or explanations. A lot of concepts and characters come and go very quickly, and it is hard to keep them all straight and absorb so much information. I feel that the book could have benefitted from being a little longer, but I also know nothing about architecture in general, this might all be common knowledge to someone who actually has studied the field.

So while this is a fascinating perspective on a famous city, it maybe requires some experience with the subject to fully appreciate. Don’t let that scare you off though if you just like Venice or something, there are plenty of pictures if you’re just here for the eye candy.

"All the Birds in the Sky" by Charlie Jane Anders

Ok so this is a really good book. Every once in a while I read a book that’s like really good and sends you to another world, has a sense of humor, and leaves you with something to think about. I hate being cliché and whatever, but this is definitely one of those.

The story follows the lives of two people, Patricia and Laurence, who represent two ways of seeing the world. Patricia is on the side of nature and magic, and learns to be a witch, while Laurence is a scientist who makes machines like a two-second time machine and tries to transport humanity to another planet.

It starts off when the two of them are really young. I didn’t love this part as the way it’s written it just seems as though the entire world is hell bent on making their lives miserable which is just rough to read about and also gives you the sense that it’s not accurate. But I also figured that since this is coming from a kid’s perspective (sort of, it’s third person really) that’s just the way that they saw the world as well.

But also the author has such a great sense of humor. Like there’s an assassin who loves ice cream that you can’t help but feel sorry for, and Laurence tries to make a supercomputer in his closet with the name “CH@NG3M3” which is amusing.

While we are on the subject of said computer, it does indeed reach sentience and changes its name to Peregrine. As in, you know, the falcon. It takes both Patricia and Laurence’s influence to get there, which is significant because it even says flat out later on that Peregrine is the child of Laurence and Patricia. So it takes both technology/science and nature in order to create life. Artificially at least. Which is why it is a piece of technology, but has the name of a bird.

Anyways so the two of them grow up and apart, but then reconnect in San Fran years later. And then there’s a superstorm that sends the whole world into chaos (this bit was a little unclear to me, like we’ve have superstorms before, why does this send us into WW3?) and these opposing factions start fighting it out. So there’s Patricia and her witch crew on one side, and Laurence and his tech crew on the other. They both come up with very different solutions to how to save the world.

The tech people want to send us to another planet. This fails because in order to do so we would have to destroy all of earth and everything on it.

The nature people want to send us back to an age where humans are feral and avoid one another compulsively. This fails because the people who made it are so separated from the rest of the world that they don’t see how this could be a bad idea. An important point that Patricia makes is that really important witches lose touch with the world because they’re so isolated, and they can’t really do magic with others anymore.

So in the end, you need both, the human-centric vision of the techies and the world-centric view of the witches. You can’t create anything without both sides of it.