When asked what his favorite play was, Harold Pinter would always say it was the Homecoming. “I like the shape of it. It has a kind of authority which I enjoy”. The scene is set in a family house. The family consists of a butcher (father), a boxer (brother), a pimp (brother) and a chauffeur (uncle). The eldest son, a professor of philosophy, comes home for a visit with his […]
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“The Nature of Order: The Luminous Ground” by Christopher Alexander
From the Ground Up A mind-boggling work. I don’t know of any other works that provide a more coherent and meaningful worldview framework in which questions about matter, space, beauty, inspiration, value and even life itself are answered, or at least can be discussed. Ever the architect-builder, Alexander dug deep to reach the Ground on which he was able to build a framework that bridges the gaps between science, art, […]
Read more“Celebration and The Room” by Harold Pinter
The first (The Room) and the last (Celebration) plays that Harold Pinter wrote. Never a dull moment in them. Celebration is a “savage farce”, as Pinter himself put it. The scene is set in an upscale restaurant, where a middle-aged couple celebrates their wedding anniversary. The dialogues are revealing at times, hilarious at others, engaging throughout. The Room, on the other hand, is somewhat subdued. The scene is set in […]
Read more“Ashes to Ashes” by Harold Pinter
I first read about Ashes to Ashes in Harold Pinter’s Nobel lecture “Art, Truth and Politics“, in which Pinter revealed the origin of the play, an image. “Ashes to Ashes, on the other hand, seems to me to be taking place under water. A drowning woman, her hand reaching up through the waves, dropping down out of sight, reaching for others, but finding nobody there, either above or under the […]
Read more“A Place of My Own” by Michael Pollan
A librarian lady recommended this book to me, saying “He is a good writer. If you like Christopher Alexander’s books, you’ll like this”. She was right. This book is a delightful read, packed with humor and thoughtfulness. Pollan tells the story of how he built a writing hut from the ground up with the help of an architect and a carpenter, weaving into the account the history of architecture, the […]
Read more“No Man’s Land” by Harold Pinter
Excerpts: “You’re a quiet one. It’s a great relief. Can you imagine two of us gabbling away like me? It would be intolerable.” “Experience is a paltry thing. Everyone has it and will tell his tale of it. … The present is truly unscrupulous. I am a poet. I’m interested in where I am eternally present and active”. “Tell me then about your wife. … How beautiful she was, how […]
Read more“The Stuff of Thought” by Steven Pinker
Informative Professor Pinker introduced the readers to some of the major constructs used in the English language, such as content-locatives, container-locatives, double-object datives, prepositional-datives, causatives and intransitives. He also gave an overview of various linguistic theories, such as Extreme Nativism, Radical Pragmatism and Linguistic Determinism. I find it very informative and interesting, especially the ingenious experiments conducted to test the theories and explore the cognitive capabilities of babies, monkeys and […]
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