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Reading Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse felt like watching two parts of myself walk in different directions. On one side, Narcissus—disciplined, cerebral, a monk who lives by order and intellect. On the other, Goldmund—wild, sensuous, always chasing life’s beauty and sorrow. I couldn’t help but feel torn between them.

Their bond begins in a monastery, but soon Goldmund sets off to wander, abandoning spiritual discipline for a path of instinct, art, and love. I followed him through his joy and ruin, feeling the pull of freedom and the cost it exacts. Every encounter he had—with lovers, landscapes, and death—felt deeply human, painfully fleeting.

Meanwhile, Narcissus remains rooted, faithful to thought and structure. When their paths cross again, years later, I saw not just a reunion, but a mirror—each man incomplete without the other. That struck me hard. We all crave meaning, but we chase it in such different ways.

Hesse’s writing is reflective and poetic, but never distant. He made me question the life I live and the life I might be afraid to live. Narcissus and Goldmund isn’t just a story—it’s a meditation on art, mortality, and the balance between the mind and the body.

By the end, I didn’t choose a side. I couldn’t. Maybe the point is that we’re meant to be both—thinkers and dreamers, seekers and still ones. Just like them.

Reading The Road Back by Erich Maria Remarque was like walking through the ruins of a familiar dream—one shattered not by fantasy, but by history. I had read All Quiet on the Western Front and thought I understood the trauma of war. But this novel showed me the deeper, quieter devastation that begins when the fighting ends.

We follow Ernst Birkholz and his fellow soldiers as they return to Germany after World War I. But home is not what they remembered, and neither are they. The true battle is no longer with weapons, but with silence, misunderstanding, and the inability to rejoin a world that no longer feels like theirs.

What struck me most was the emotional restraint Remarque uses. There are no dramatic breakdowns, no patriotic climaxes—just numbness, confusion, and the slow erosion of spirit. I felt that numbness seep into me, paragraph by paragraph. It’s the kind of book that sits in your chest, quietly tightening.

The scenes of alienation—of men wandering their old towns, trying to find meaning in work, in friendship, in love—are some of the most quietly powerful I’ve ever read. I found myself grieving not just for the characters, but for the idea of peace that never quite arrives.

The Road Back reminded me that survival isn’t the same as healing. And that the aftermath of war, the space where the noise fades and the silence begins, might be the most haunting battlefield of all. I closed the book feeling older somehow—humbled, and very awake.

Reading The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire felt like wandering through a cathedral built from shadows and perfume. Every poem seemed to whisper something forbidden, something beautiful wrapped in rot. I didn’t just read this collection — I fell into it.

From the first lines, I was struck by Baudelaire’s refusal to flinch. He doesn’t hide from decay, lust, guilt, or despair. He confronts them head-on, then distills them into verses that feel both classical and defiantly modern. The beauty of his language clashes with the darkness of his themes — and that contradiction is where the poems become unforgettable.

I was especially moved by the way Baudelaire treats suffering not as something to escape, but as a gateway to deeper insight. His explorations of sin and redemption, love and death, made me feel uncomfortable in the best way. I found myself questioning my own ideas of beauty, of morality, even of poetry itself.

There were moments I had to pause, to let a single stanza echo. Others left me disturbed, even a little seduced. Baudelaire writes with a voice that feels centuries old and painfully current.

The Flowers of Evil isn’t just a book of poems — it’s a confrontation. And I’m glad I didn’t look away.

Reading The Stranger by Albert Camus left me both unsettled and oddly calm — like staring into a bright, empty sky and realizing it has no answers. Originally published in 1942, this novel is often seen as the embodiment of Camus’ philosophy of the absurd, and with good reason.

The story follows Meursault, a French-Algerian clerk who reacts to life’s most significant events — his mother’s death, a romantic relationship, even a murder — with unsettling emotional detachment. His indifference is not cruelty, but a radical honesty: he simply refuses to pretend that life has inherent meaning.

When Meursault shoots an unnamed Arab man under the blazing Algerian sun, it feels less like a crime of passion than an existential rupture. What follows is not just a murder trial, but a trial of Meursault’s character, his lack of faith, his refusal to lie about grief or belief. Society, it seems, is more disturbed by his honesty than his violence.

What struck me most was the clarity of Camus’ prose. The sentences are clean and sharp, mirroring Meursault’s view of the world: unembellished, immediate, free of illusion. It’s a language that leaves no room to hide — from death, from truth, or from ourselves.

For me, The Stranger is less about a man on trial than about what it means to live authentically in an indifferent universe. It’s not comforting, but it is liberating.

Reading Three Comrades by Erich Maria Remarque felt like returning to a world permanently haunted by war — not by its battles, but by its aftermath. Set in Germany during the late 1920s, this novel follows three World War I veterans — Robert Lohkamp, Otto Köster, and Gottfried Lenz — who try to build a modest life in a society shaken by defeat, inflation, and quiet despair.

The story is anchored in the deep friendship between these men, who share everything: a small garage, bitter memories, and an unspoken understanding of what they’ve survived. But when Robert falls in love with the fragile, enigmatic Patricia Hollmann, the emotional tone of the novel shifts. Love offers the possibility of hope, yet death and disillusionment hover never far behind.

What moved me most was the emotional restraint of Remarque’s prose. Nothing is overstated. The pain, the tenderness, the quiet courage — all are conveyed in a language that feels honest and worn by experience. The novel is both a tribute to human connection and a quiet protest against the senselessness of war.

Three Comrades is not just a novel about postwar Germany; it’s a meditation on friendship as a form of survival, and on how love can bloom even in the most barren soil. For me, it’s a story that lingers — bittersweet and deeply humane.

Reading A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle felt like stepping back to the very origin of one of literature’s most iconic partnerships. Published in 1887, this novel introduces both Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, setting the tone for all their future adventures with a mix of sharp observation, intellectual flair, and Victorian eccentricity.

The novel is structured in two distinct parts. The first follows Dr. Watson as he meets Holmes and becomes entangled in a bizarre murder case involving a corpse found in an abandoned house with the word Rache (“revenge” in German) scrawled in blood on the wall. Holmes’ method — rational, meticulous, and dazzlingly fast — immediately sets him apart, and Watson, like the reader, watches with a mix of awe and confusion.

What surprised me on rereading was the second part: a lengthy flashback set in the American West, explaining the motivations behind the crime through a tale of love, loss, and revenge within a Mormon community. This narrative shift feels bold, almost experimental, compared to later, tighter Holmes stories.

At its heart, A Study in Scarlet is about observation — of people, of motives, of connections hidden beneath the obvious. It establishes Holmes as a detective of reason in a world clouded by passions.

For me, this first case remains charmingly uneven but full of the seeds that would make Sherlock Holmes unforgettable: precision, arrogance, and an uncanny gift for making sense of chaos.

Reading Alexandre Dumas’ The Black Tulip was like stepping into a lighter, more whimsical corner of 19th-century historical fiction — one where flowers carry as much weight as political conspiracies, and love quietly triumphs over hatred and injustice. Published in 1850, this novel combines elements of romance, history, and adventure in a way only Dumas can achieve.

Set in the Netherlands during the turbulent period of 1672, known as the “Disaster Year,” the novel opens with the violent downfall of the De Witt brothers, a grim moment in Dutch history. Yet from this darkness blooms a gentler tale centered on Cornelius van Baerle, a kind and naive tulip-grower who dreams of cultivating the first black tulip — a botanical marvel thought impossible.

What struck me most was how Dumas balances the political backdrop with the almost meditative obsession of Cornelius’ horticultural quest. Falsely accused of treason and imprisoned, Cornelius finds hope not in revolution or revenge, but in tending to a fragile bulb and forming a tender bond with Rosa, the jailer’s daughter.

The Black Tulip explores themes of perseverance, innocence, and the redemptive power of love and beauty. Though less sweeping than Dumas’ other works like The Count of Monte Cristo, it possesses a quiet charm and a sense of wonder.

For me, this novel was a reminder that history isn’t just shaped by wars and betrayals, but also by the small, persistent dreams people nurture in silence. Dumas’ elegant, slightly ironic tone lends the story both humor and warmth.

In the end, The Black Tulip is not merely about a flower — it’s about how beauty and hope can survive even in the darkest places.

Reading Simone de Beauvoir’s All Men Are Mortal felt like stepping into a philosophical thought experiment disguised as a novel. Published in 1946, this work explores profound questions about time, meaning, and the human condition through the story of Raimon Fosca, a man cursed — or perhaps doomed — with immortality.

The narrative unfolds through the perspective of Régine, a contemporary actress obsessed with fame and terrified of her own insignificance. When she meets Fosca, who claims to have lived for centuries, their relationship becomes a lens through which de Beauvoir examines the nature of desire, ambition, and the consequences of eternity.

Fosca recounts his endless life in exhaustive detail: from medieval Italy to modern France, through wars, revolutions, and personal failures. What becomes painfully clear is that immortality does not bring wisdom, happiness, or peace. Instead, it strips life of urgency and purpose. Without the limit of death, nothing retains meaning for long.

What struck me most was how de Beauvoir uses Fosca’s plight to mirror our own struggle with time. Mortality, she suggests, is what gives shape to love, ambition, and identity. Without it, we risk losing the very essence of what makes life precious.

Her writing blends existential philosophy with storytelling in a way that feels both intellectual and deeply human.

For me, All Men Are Mortal wasn’t just a novel about deathlessness; it was a meditation on why endings matter. It left me questioning how I measure fulfillment, knowing that it is the limit of time — not its absence — that gives weight to every choice we make.