On Beauty
I am done with all exams and all projects now. More relieved than happy to be fair. And not even too relieved if I am to be perfectly honest. But then again– relaxing can be just as hard as working and it can take just as much time for one to get started with it.
I am getting more and more convinved these days that hard work isn’t for me. I mean don’t even get me started. First things first, I’m mindblowingly lazy. This is one thing. It has its roots, maybe it’s fear, maybe it’s something else. But I’m not talking that much about starting things as much as I am about doing them consistently. I mean, I can’t deny the effect. Consistency seems to indeed produce results. But so does money, so does a good name. And yet these days it seems far more permissible for one to critisize the King than for that same person to critisize a hardworking person. Society seems to be placing hard-work, consistency, or whatever you want to call it, on or near the top of the list of personal virtues these days. What I’m really annoyed about is the casual existential approach everyone seems to possess when it comes to this issue. So no one things that anyone can become the King, but everyone could suceed if only they put in the work. And in order for that to have any meaning, it must be implied that everyone is able to put in said work. On the very least one should recognize that routine work, delayed gratification, persistence, and so on come more easily to certain people than others. On the not very least, please consider that anyone can indeed become the King of England. Look at William the Conquerer.
Anyway, enough sad and depressing talk. I finished On Beauty (by the fabulous Zadie Smith) a few days ago when I was supposed to be studying for my exams and working on my projects. According to my Goodreads account, I first picked that book in the summer of 2022. That’s right, it took me about 2 years to finish it. Then again in reality, I did about 10% on a day trip to Boston back in the spring, 15% more on another weekend trip, and the rest in approximately 2 days. It was more about always getting distracted or picking something easier to read. Once I got past say one fifth of it, I simply couldn’t put my IPad down until I was done with it.
Zadie Smith is amazing. This book will probably never be a classic because it relied heavily on outside references from Earth’s intellectual history. That being said, it is about academia, infidelity, religion, art, intellectualism, and so much more. The ending is one of these ticking bombs that you know are eventually going to explode. And when they finally do, you feel bad for a few minutes and then you realize that this was actually a reasonably happy ending considering what Howard (minor spoiler) did over the course of this novel. You simply need to read this book, so that I don’t spoil it to you. One thing to note is that I didn’t really like a single character in this book (not the English, not the Americans, not even Kiki). And yet I loved the plot, the descriptions, the climax, the idea, in short– everything about it is simply too beautiful to resist. So just get the book and give it a try. It might take you 2 years, but it is totally worth it.
Now, I’m sitting in an airport. I was supposed to be on a 6pm flight to Frankfurt, but I’m now on a 10pm flight to Frankfurt. We will see how things unfold. If everything goes according to plan, I’ll be cruising the Mediterranean in 5 days. Thank you for reading :)