All of the (two) books I read in September and what I thought of them

Greetings and salutations to the very cool readers of my book blog. You may remember that I have forgotten how to read because I am in college now. At the time of writing, I think I have remembered how to read; I just have no time. But for the whole month of September, I did not know how to read. In every other respect, however, I have been slaying. Every day, I slay even more than I did on the previous day. It is truly a talent. If anyone ever asks you whether you are slaying, the correct answer is "yes because I read Clara's book blog." But onto the books, in any case.

✨✨✨

The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli

rating: ⭐⭐⭐

I read this book for my poli sci class and it was fine. I understood much of it, and I liked it far better than The Republic, which I also had to read for that class, except I only had to read half of it, so I don't really think it counts. My personal belief is that Socrates deserved what he got. All of my friends have to read something about him, and none of them enjoy it except my roommate Sarah, who is in many ways a one-of-a-kind individual. But the suffering Socrates is responsible for (every student who has ever had to read The Republic) is, added together, more suffering than one undergoes drinking hemlock. He didn't write it, but if he hadn't been such a know-it-all, Plato wouldn't have written it about him. If I meet Socrates in a dark alley, it's going to be all over for him. But Machiavelli is alright.

A fun fact is that my professor is a Machiavelli apologist. She thinks he is right. She says he is really a republic fan, but you can't have a republic in a failed state. In a failed state, you need a strong leader to sort things our, allegedly, so you can get to a functional society where a republic is possible. When she explains it the way she explains it, it makes sense. I love my professor. Only what fool thinks a despot would fix up a failed state and then relinquish power? Despots are not nice. So Machiavelli has some problems, but he's okay.

👑👑👑

Moshi Moshi by Banana Yoshimoto

rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is a book about a twentyish year old woman whose father makes a suicide pact and dies and then she starts having borderline supernatural dreams about him. Also her mother moves in with her. Also she ponders the nature of life and loss and grief. If this is sounding like Kitchen in a different font, that's because it is.

Moshi Moshi isn't quite as good as Kitchen, but that's because Kitchen is very, very good. Moshi Moshi follows a likeable woman roughly my age; I enjoy the writing style; it was short; and it had nice themes that I wanted to read about. What is there to complain about?

At the time of writing your faithful book blogger (me) is sitting in the laundry room waiting for the washing machines to be done. It is 12:30 a.m. and I have a 9 a.m. class tomorrow (like I do every day lol) but I really need to do laundry and some SCHMUCK started a load of laundry in both of the two functional laundry machines right as I came down. He is now taking his stuff out of the washing machines in a timely manner, so I guess maybe he isn't a schmuck. I just thought I would share. Much like how I shared with him that he's now on my book blog. So he may think I'm very strange now, which isn't an entirely incorrect assumption.

But back to Moshi Moshi. This book had a remarkable talent for meditating on the same things I was meditating on while I was reading it. I was thinking about how my life is a collection of little moments that are utterly insignificant, but they mean something to me. And how life is really a little chain of events that are ephemeral and fleeting. They drift away like balloons and all that is left is the way they made you feel. It's odd how the things that occur in your life are at the same time so small and meaningless and they leave no trace once they are gone, and also so meaningful to one person. This book had some reflections on that sort of thing, which was timely. 

This would be a good book to read if you enjoyed the part of I'm Thinking Of Ending Things where the woman keeps getting weird phone calls from a strange man, but wish everything else about that book was radically different.

📞📞📞

A fun fact about the two books I read this month is that both of the authors have a first name and a last name starting with a consonant and ending with a vowel. Also, Banana and Niccolò both have 3 syllables, and Yoshimoto has 4 syllables, and so does Machiavelli, I think, if you pronounce it the Italian way. Also, I read both books in translation, and they were both short. So a lot of similarities for two books that are entirely dissimilar!! 

correction: my friend frank has a 253 day duolingo italian streak and helpfully informs me that under no circumstances is machiavelli pronounced with 4 syllables.