sábado, maio 16, 2020

Lives of Noble Greeks and Romans, by Plutarch


What a wonderful read! Plutarch's Lives show us how human nature didn't change a bit since antiquity, how human goals, flaws and greatness have been really the same always. The writing is beautiful, we really feel engaged in those men's lives, and I ended up wishing there were more lives described, like Augustus' or Nero's. His account is so extremely vivid, it seems strange how this was written so many centuries ago. This is why I do love to read history books, they are such a help to understanding human nature.


terça-feira, maio 05, 2020

Shtisel


This is a wonderful series, the kind I hadn’t watched for a long time. A sweet sitcom, extremely well acted, about a family of Haredim (ultra orthodox) Jews living in Jerusalem. Unlike other series, like Unorthodox, that focus on the differences between us (the Western world society) and this people, this series focuses on the similarities between us. And it really succeeds – these people care about family, love, their children, etc. It reminded me of the Cairo trilogy books by Naguib Mahfouz, in the way it brings a different and strange culture, to us Westerners, close to us. People are after all so much the same everywhere, in their problems and wishes.
It was also very nice to listen to Hebrew, and it made me go back to Duolingo to try to learn the language.