kyscg's reviews
249 reviews

this writing has some of the best self-deprecating + existentialist humour ever written. some parts would go real viral on substack/blog-screenshot-twitter. the plot gets weak at some places and the ending is lacklustre. almost like it was written in the hope that it would be adapted into a movie.

wasn't too bad, although I felt that narration + dialogue were far stronger than descriptions in many places. I have no clue what that Weed character is doing in the book except as a literary device for more exposition, and even that is a weak justification.

I hadn't realised how much I missed this sarcastic percy jacksonesque humour until I started reading this book. I finished this in one sitting, which is something childhood me wouldn't really think was anything special but many winters have passed since I read a book cover to cover without stopping.

both the dialogue and monologue are great, the plot kinda darkens and pales simultaneously towards the end but it was still very enjoyable to read. also, the subject matter is clearly dark, and the humour does a very good job of being thoughtful as well as effective.

my third consecutive Jack London book, I can't get enough of his writing. I wish I read this when I was in school. For me, this is better than The Call of the Wild as far as the writing and story go. I am going to go around for the next few days asking everyone I run into to read this book.

I love this book so much, for so many reasons. As a child, I used to open this book to the scene where Buck pulls a thousand pounds for John and read it over and over again. Simply wonderful

Some Robinson Crusoesque short stories that I really enjoyed reading. I liked The House of Mapuhi, Mauki, and The Heathen a lot.

good book, the whole christian evangelism propaganda was overdone in my opinion, but it is tolerable

more like a history of the "western" world in 6 glasses (with additional focus on how britain is heaven's gift to mankind)

the first paragraph of the preface was more than enough: 

Between 1958 and 1962, China descended into hell. Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, threw his country into a frenzy with the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to catch up with and overtake Britain in less than fifteen years. 

By unleashing China’s greatest asset, a labour force that was counted in the hundreds of millions, Mao thought that he could catapult his country past its competitors. Instead of following the Soviet model of development, which leaned heavily towards industry alone, China would ‘walk on two legs’: the peasant masses were mobilised to transform both agriculture and industry at the same time, converting a backward economy into a modern communist society of plenty for all. 

In the pursuit of a utopian paradise, everything was collectivised, as villagers were herded together in giant communes which heralded the advent of communism. People in the countryside were robbed of their work, their homes, their land, their belongings and their livelihood. Food, distributed by the spoonful in collective canteens according to merit, became a weapon to force people to follow the party’s every dictate. 

Irrigation campaigns forced up to half the villagers to work for weeks on end on giant water-conservancy projects, often far from home, without adequate food and rest. The experiment ended in the greatest catastrophe the country had ever known, destroying tens of millions of lives.

"I am the flail of god. Had you not committed great sins, god would not have sent a punishment like me upon you."

Genghis Khan's response to the Khwarazmian Empire that killed his diplomats. Over ten million of their people would be butchered by the Mongols in the next two years

I started reading this two seasons ago and stopped because I couldn't visualize all the places in my head without a map of China in front of me at all times. It's not a great book compared to the historical biographies I read. Feels like a hastily written draft rather than a finished product. There are attempts to perform the usual historical-biography flourishes, like ending chapters with an enigmatic sentence and whatnot, but they are so half-hearted that they're more cringey than hair-raising.

Also, what was up with the chapter on Genghis' death? The entire event was written like an afterthought. I was very confused, thinking I missed a couple of pages or something. Anyway, I'll end with a badass anecdote from Hulagu's sack of Baghdad.

"A sober estimate of the fatalities in the siege and sack of Baghdad provides a tally of 90,000 dead... It was said that so many books were thrown into the Tigris that the river, previously red with blood, now turned black with ink and remained that way for several days."

Hulagu imprisoned the Caliph and brought him a plate full of gold, meaning him to eat it. The Caliph replied,

"It is not edible"

"Then why did you keep it? Why did you not use it to pay your soldiers?", asked Hulagu

"It was the will of God", replied the Caliph

"What will happen to you now," said Hulagu, "is also God's will"