Reviews and Comments

Reading Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Flies was for me like standing in a dark square, listening to voices that echoed both fear and defiance. The play, Sartre’s reimagining of the myth of Orestes and Electra, struck me not only as a retelling of a Greek tragedy, but as a profound meditation on freedom and responsibility in a world paralyzed by guilt.

From the moment Orestes returns to Argos, I felt the oppressive weight of the city, haunted by the flies that symbolize decay and remorse. The people live crushed under the authority of King Aegisthus and the manipulations of Jupiter, convinced that their sins demand eternal punishment. I was deeply moved by how Sartre captured this suffocating atmosphere—it reminded me of how fear can keep entire societies silent and submissive.

What stirred me most was Orestes’s awakening. His decision to kill Aegisthus and Clytemnestra is not just an act of vengeance, but a declaration of human freedom: the refusal to accept guilt imposed from outside. As I read, I could feel the shift from despair to empowerment, as if Sartre were whispering that true liberty comes only when we assume the weight of our choices.

The Flies left me unsettled yet inspired. It is not a play of easy catharsis, but of confrontation: with authority, with fear, and ultimately with ourselves. For me, it remains a stark reminder that freedom always carries the burden of responsibility.

Reading Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis was for me an unsettling journey into alienation and the fragility of human bonds. The story begins abruptly: Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, wakes one morning to find himself transformed into a monstrous insect. What struck me most was not the transformation itself, but how quickly the narrative shifts to the reactions of those around him—his family’s fear, shame, and eventual rejection.

As I followed Gregor’s slow decline, I felt both compassion and horror. His initial concern for work deadlines, even in his grotesque state, revealed the crushing grip of duty and habit. Yet, as the days passed, his world shrank to the walls of his room, and I could almost feel the suffocating isolation closing in on me as well.

The family’s responses unsettled me deeply. Their shift from pity to burden, and finally to cold detachment, felt like a cruel mirror of how society often treats those who can no longer “contribute.” Gregor’s death, quiet and almost welcomed by his family, left me with a hollow ache.

The Metamorphosis is, for me, not just a tale of transformation but a stark meditation on what it means to be human. Kafka forces us to confront how fragile love and acceptance can be when stripped of utility—and that realization still lingers uncomfortably with me.

Reading T. S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men felt like walking through a wasteland of whispers, where every word was a fragment of despair. The poem struck me immediately with its stark portrayal of spiritual emptiness, a vision of humanity drained of conviction, drifting in a liminal space between life and death.

What moved me most was the repetition of voices that seem almost prayer-like, but hollow, stripped of faith. I felt as though I were listening to a chorus of lost souls, murmuring without hope of redemption. Eliot’s images—the dry land, the fading stars, the scarecrow figures—gave me a physical sense of desolation. Each line carried the weight of an exhausted century, scarred by war and spiritual collapse.

The ending, with its famous “not with a bang but a whimper,” left me stunned. I had expected perhaps a burst of resolution, but instead Eliot offered silence, anticlimax, a whimper that echoed in me long after I closed the book.

For me, The Hollow Men is not just poetry; it is a mirror held up to our frailty, a reminder of how close we often live to the edge of meaninglessness. It unsettled me—and yet I needed that unease.

Reading Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis felt like stepping into a hall of mirrors where the reflections kept changing, sometimes grotesque, sometimes heartbreakingly intimate. At first, I thought I was reading a parody of the author’s own life: the narrator is named Bret Easton Ellis, a writer infamous for his excesses, his celebrity, and his brutal novels. There was an almost comic sharpness to the way he exposed his own vanity, drug use, and fractured relationships. But as I turned the pages, the tone shifted, and I found myself caught in something far darker.

The book becomes a hybrid: part memoir, part horror story, part satire. Ellis describes settling into suburban family life with his wife and son, only to find the past clawing its way back. Strange, supernatural events unfold: a possessed house, unexplained deaths, ghostly presences. I could never tell if these hauntings were real or simply projections of guilt and fear. That uncertainty was what disturbed me most.

What struck me deeply was the way Ellis used horror not just to scare, but to reveal. Behind the poltergeists and the violence, I felt the ache of a man terrified of fatherhood, of love, of responsibility. The suburban calm was just a mask stretched over dread.

By the end, I was unsettled but oddly moved. Lunar Park isn’t just about being haunted by ghosts—it’s about being haunted by one’s own past, one’s mistakes, and the fear of not being able to change. Closing the book, I felt like I had witnessed a confession disguised as a horror novel, and it lingered with me long after.

Reading Frank Schätzing’s The Swarm was for me an experience both thrilling and deeply unsettling. At first, I thought I was entering a typical science-fiction thriller, but very quickly I realized the novel was much more: a confrontation with the fragility of human dominance over nature.

The story begins with mysterious and seemingly unrelated incidents: whales attacking boats, deep-sea crabs crawling onto coasts in destructive masses, unexplained collapses in the ocean floor. As I turned the pages, I felt the unease building—what if these were not random events, but signs of an intelligence rising from the depths? Schätzing gradually reveals the existence of a collective oceanic entity, an intelligence that sees humanity as a destructive intruder and responds with calculated vengeance.

What struck me most was not only the suspense but the sheer plausibility of it all. Schätzing grounds his narrative in marine biology, geology, and environmental science, so much so that I often forgot I was reading fiction. I found myself oscillating between awe at the scale of his imagination and dread at the ecological warnings hidden within.

The human characters—scientists, politicians, ordinary people—become both narrators of and pawns in this vast ecological drama. Their helplessness mirrored my own as a reader: no technology, no political maneuvering could mask the reality that humanity had underestimated the ocean’s power.

By the end, I closed the book with a heavy awareness. The Swarm is not simply a thriller; it is a warning disguised as entertainment. It left me questioning how long our fragile balance with nature can hold—and whether, if pushed too far, the ocean might truly answer back.

Reading Bertolt Brecht’s Baal felt like standing too close to a fire—at once hypnotic and destructive. The play follows Baal, a poet and musician whose raw talent is matched only by his self-indulgence and cruelty. Instead of being celebrated as a misunderstood genius, he comes across as someone who consumes everything around him: friends, lovers, even himself.

What struck me most was the way Brecht refuses to romanticize the artist. Baal is charismatic, yes, but also repellent—driven by desire, incapable of restraint, leaving ruin wherever he goes. I found myself both fascinated and unsettled, unable to look away from his downward spiral.

The imagery is stark and often brutal: drinking, wandering through taverns, seductions that quickly turn sour, and the slow erosion of his vitality. By the end, Baal is not a tragic hero but a man hollowed out by his own appetites.

For me, the play was less about one individual and more about the myth of the artist as untouchable. Brecht seems to ask: what happens when talent is worshipped without responsibility? Baal left me with unease, but also clarity—the reminder that brilliance without humanity burns everything to ash.

Leer El ser y la nada fue para mí como entrar en un laberinto sin salida clara, un espacio filosófico que me obligó a cuestionar incluso lo más cotidiano. No es un texto fácil; cada página exige atención absoluta, pero en esa dificultad descubrí también una intensidad única. Sartre escribe con una precisión que a veces se siente como un golpe: directo, inevitable.

Uno de los conceptos que más me impresionó fue la distinción entre el “ser-en-sí”, el mundo de las cosas, cerrado y completo, y el “ser-para-sí”, el de la conciencia humana, siempre abierto, inacabado y condenado a elegir. Comprendí de una manera casi dolorosa lo que Sartre quiere decir cuando afirma que estamos “condenados a ser libres”. La libertad no es aquí un don, sino una carga: no podemos escapar a la responsabilidad de lo que hacemos y de lo que somos.

Igualmente perturbador me resultó su reflexión sobre “la mirada del otro”. Descubrí en esas páginas una verdad incómoda: cómo nos convertimos en objetos cuando dejamos que los ojos ajenos nos definan. Me vi reflejado en esas situaciones en las que uno se adapta demasiado al juicio externo, perdiendo autenticidad.

El ser y la nada no es un libro que consuele; es un espejo que devuelve una imagen cruda de lo humano. Y, sin embargo, sentí al leerlo que en esa crudeza había también una forma de claridad.