Two Words, One Answer.
ignorance
 If Ignorance Is Bliss, Why Aren't There More Happy People?: Smart Quotes for Dumb Times $21.99 These quotes are fun and easy to find. I especially like the occasional editor comments about the quotes that are sometimes a little snarky and fun. Use this book to find quotes for presentations or blog entries or whatever you can use for a little wittiness or edge to your work.  Ignorance: A Novel $13.95 This book is Milan Kundera's variation on the Odyssey theme, exemplified in the fate of his home country the Czech Republic and its inhabitants. Many Czechs emigrated during the revolution of 1968 as they saw their future in their country as very bleak. But, the situation changed completely after the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The Czech Republic became again a completely independent, free and multi-party State. During the emigration years, the general mood of the emigrants was `nostalgia', the pain of ignorance, of not knowing what happened in their far away country. When they went back after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, they saw amazingly that they no longer existed for their relatives: `he had the sense he was coming back into the world as might a dead man emerging from his tomb.' Former lovers didn't know each other anymore: `a reality is no longer what it was when it was; it cannot be reconstituted.' Even legally, the emigrants didn't exist anymore. After 1989, all properties nationalized under the communist regime were returned to their former owners (or their children). This restitution became irrevocable after one year, if the claim was not contested. This book is a strong meditation on human memory (`which is only capable of retaining a paltry little scrap of the past') and on man's fate (`If we do not know what future the present is leading us toward, how can we say whether this present is good or bad.') It is a perfect introduction to Milan Kundera's literary universe dominated by such cardinal themes as the enigma of the self, the ineluctable defeat called life, memory and forgetting, and freedom of man and of expression (literature). A must read for all lovers of world literature.  Brand New Eyes $18.98 This Paramore album has a much different feel than their last album Riot. All of these songs have lyrics that appear to be much deeper than those songs on Riot. There is also a slight change in style, some people may not like this, but I like the fact that these songs seem more meaningful than those on Riot. Riot was a ton of fun to listen to and I loved it as an album, but I really like what Paramore is bringing to the table with Brand New Eyes. |
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