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Did I manage to read more than in 2020? Get ready to f- no, the answer is no.
This year, unless it was some obtained EPUB, let's put the publisher to make it look like professional reviews! Also it's now English-only even though these are mostly French books, hope you don't mind…
A tale of work in the French mines and the life of the workers that the author calls Javanese, which is like using “gobbledegook” or double Dutch as the imaginary nationality of those that speak any kind of language, because they're from all over the world. We follow a few of the workers of the mine, the inhabitants of the nearby village whose life is dependant on the money spent by the workers and the irascible notables both profiting from the activity and being disgusted by it, in the southern France of the 30s.
Not the easiest read because Malaquais uses a lot of slang (some call him the left-wing Céline in that regard), but the situations and characters depicted are all incredibly touching, even though it sometimes is also very harsh and crude. Even though he evidently has a socialist sensibility, he is not softening one bit of the dark sides of the characters because of class solidarity. They are humans, and for all their qualities they also can be just filth. Trotsky himself in the epilogue acknowledges that, lol. Recommended for French readers!
A French teacher talking about contemporary issues in France's schools in a succinct and engaging stream-of-thought style. Want a short read to know what it's like to teach in France? This is the book. Hope you don't need a warning to know that it's depressing.
We follow the story of a russian prince evolving among its peers. He is sometimes perceived as an idiot because he seems to misunderstand a lot of what is going on, how to behave, what to say and what to keep to yourself in social situations. For a modern reader this may look as a form of autism but this would be reducing the character.
I won't attempt to make a detailed commentary of this book because it can go in so many directions and surely it must have been done a lot better elsewhere. Just so you know, it touched me very deeply, sometimes to tears, especially when the prince talked about the rejected woman back in his Swiss village. There is an uncommon sense of purity and honesty in Dostoevsky's writing. Incredible book!
On the evolution of armed conflicts with regards to drone usage.
The author analyses what drone technology implies for the nations piloting them against attacked territories. Specifically, there is an idea of technology supremacy, a war made “sane” because fighter-less, of course fantasized because there never has been a single war where both sides had drones; besides, their strikes have nothing surgical about them, and this deadly imprecision is a powerful argument for insurgents to rally the local population behind them as there is no army on the ground.
The entire ethics of war have to be reconsidered: we used to accept war because both sides had a chance to defend themselves. Drones prevent this for one side, so the attacker is now subject not to the ethics of war but to the ethics of death, or giving death, that the author coins under the term necroethics (“nécroéthique”)
Drones can also be seen as a solution to the identity crisis of the protector-state. In the past, a state could send its population to the war front because the authority allowing it to do so came from the protection it offered in exchange. Some critical discourse such as Kant's showed that the citizen could interject: “you are the sovereign exposing me, so you must obey me”, contradicting the state. Using drones allow the state to avoid directly using its population for war, solving its contradiction to find itself again in the liberal, war organiser position without trading its people's life.
Overall an extremely interesting perspective onto the usage of drones. I find most of the concepts presented here easily extend to the broader attempts of governments to distance themselves from their population using technology, e.g. public services replaced with inferior computerised surrogates.
Another story of Russian aristocracy, this time it is a more straight-forward romantic tragedy. Can't tell much more without spoiling, but it is about love and religion, very Russian stuff!
It has been recommended to me and I wanted to read Tolstoy, firstly because I wanted to continue with Russian authors after Dostoevski and secondly because he always is given as the first example of a “christian anarchist”. Well it turned out to be a good novel, but not too much to my taste. Later my Dostoevsky-fan friend told me it was because I read it right after Dostoevsky, which makes everything feels bland in comparison. Eh, maybe it's that.
Two short novels that feel just like the clip for Hell on Earth by KAS:ST: the abandoned youth of rural France is stirring up trouble.
I have yet to read the longer titles that made Mathieu known, but I found these two novels very well written, with a lot of subtlety and empathy towards the characters. My main criticism, if I succeed at expressing it correctly, is that the author sometimes tries too hard to speak and act like its characters, or how he thinks his characters should talk and act, which highlight a possible social gap between him and them despite his efforts to narrow it and invest himself in them. It's just a feeling though, I need to read his more known and longer works to make my mind!
The tragic and intriguing fate of Vernon Subutex, a lazy music store owner turned homeless because no-one goes to music stores now. Vernon goes through his connections to avoid ending up in the street: girlfriends, pop stars, drunkards… The book is a collection of these crude Parisian portraits. It's a bit too much “rock, alcohol, sex and cocaine” but it works well, each character is unique and has something to bring to the greater painting of Paris that ultimately is the book.
The first book is great and more or less enough for the story. I found the 2nd and 3rd book much less enjoyable, as if Despentes really does not know where to go with the story.
An novel about the relation between an university lecturer and a banker. It's short, fun, sad, but most importantly caustic, like holy shit.
“Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess” is good introduction to tactics and rapidly focuses on checkmates: the back row, moving defenders, etc. There is only 3 ways to escape check: capture the attacking piece, interposition (can be useful or useless!) and fleeing.
“Simple Checkmates” continues with more one- or two-move checkmates. It is light in explanations but provides a lot of diagrams to train with.
“Discovering Chess Openings” is a good introduction to principles of openings, along with descriptions of popular openings, with nice descriptions and analysis of why this or that move is interesting. Great read!
“Chess tactics for students” describes the common tactics you can use to gain advantage: pins, back rank combinations, forks, double checks/attacks, discovered checks/attacks, skewers, double threats, promotions, removing the guard, perpetual checks and zugzwang.
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