Reviews and Comments

I don't think I read this book with the right intention. I should probably revisit the book in the future without outside interference (in 1, 2 years). It's certainly not a bad book, this is why I gave it 3 not 2 stars ("liked it"). I share the criticism of the "Übermensch"(superman in English as I got told) but I think the idea of the Übermensch as presented in Dostoevsky is not complete (I will not say wrong -partly because it’s not the term Dostoevsky would have used, for obvs reasons-, though I did think of this a few times while reading). It is not the absence of a god (more precisely, a belief in god) that enables one to be a Übermensch, but rather a superior thinking (german: "überlegenheit"). This is more likely to be instigated by a belief in God. Religion is based on the superiority of the followers of the "right" religion, i.e. every religion. Morality is handed over to an imaginary figure and even more dangerous to its representatives, for example the churches, which has led to incredible suffering in history (e.g. the Crusades). A believer is forced per se to act amorally (which I would describe as acting against human nature, but there is more to that which I have no space to depict here), for example to kill one's own child if one's own God commands it. This is of course an exaggerated example, but it is humanity, in the sense of our nature as social beings, that normally prevents you from doing so, unless you are ill like Raskolnikov. As a believer, however, you must (theoretically) be prepared to cross this line for your God. Fortunately, I don't believe hardly anyone in this world would do so. (This is not to say believers are in some way amoral or would kill or sth. like that. These are just my philosophical ideas regarding the moral implications I interpreted in this book, influenced by what I also read about this book beforehand, which probably has influenced the way I read it - also the reason I want to revisit it in the future |( edit: though if one wanted a real world example, someome could point to J.D.Vance in some sense, hypothetically speaking of course ))

Positiv an diesem Buch ist, dass es sich sehr schön lesen lässt und man schnell in einen Flow geraten kann.
Das war es aber schon mit dem, was mir positiv in Erinnerung bleibt.

Während des gesamten Lesens dieses Buches waren mir die Figuren und die Geschichte unglaublich gleichgültig. Ich halte dieses Buch für überflüssig, da es mir nichts gibt und auch nichts nimmt.

Letztlich kann ich mir nur drei Arten von Personen vorstellen, die aus diesem Buch etwas ziehen können:
1. Eine Person, die noch nie ein Buch gelesen hat oder noch nie aus einer anderen Motivation heraus als Schule oder aus einem pseudointellektuellen Drang, die Nobelpreisträger-Liste abzuarbeiten.
2. Jemand, der sich noch nie mit dem eigenen Leben oder Tod auseinandergesetzt hat und es spannend findet, wenn man einer Person mit null emotionaler Bindung zu den Lesenden als Gespenst beim Herumlaufen folgt.
Oder 3. Eine Person, die sich noch nie damit beschäftigt hat, was für eine und ob Religion/Glaube für sie eine Bedeutung hat.

Ich bin keine dieser Personen.

Wenn ich ein Buch über Leben und Tod lese, dann möchte ich mindestens eine (bitte wenigstens eine!) interessante Idee darüber in dem Buch vorfinden. Und die fehlt.

Wer das Buch lesen will, sollte keine hohen Erwartungen setzen, damit es bei einem vergesslichen Leseerlebnis bleibt und nicht in ein trauriges überschwappt.
Wie gesagt, nimmt und gibt das Buch nichts, es tut nicht weh, es tröstet nicht. Ich weiß nicht, was der Sinn dieses Buches ist.
Es ist besser als zwei Stunden Doomscrolling, aber lest einfach They Both Die at the End oder The First to Die at the End, wenn man etwas Tragisches und Tröstendes über Leben und Tod lesen möchte.
„Morgen und Abend“ ist okay. Nicht mehr, nicht weniger.

A short but no less powerful plea for engagement, indignation, and resistance. Admittedly, many reasons to be indignant and thus initiate change are not as obvious today as they were in Stéphane Hessel’s time in the Résistance - as he points out - but this does not mean that there are no reasons, or that this can be used as an excuse to not be indignant. The strengthening of the right, especially in Europe and the US, and the effects of climate change are now much more prominent than they may have been a few years ago. What particularly infuriates me is how blatantly human rights are being mistreated. The fact that many countries, especially when it comes to the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community and self-determination, resist human rights with excuses like »we’ve always done it this way« and »if you allow these rights, society will collapse« is simply inhumane and untrue.

The book often reminded me of a quote by Hannah Arendt, especially when Hessel talks about change.

Evil is always only extreme, but never radical, it has no depth, no demonism. It can devastate the whole world precisely because it continues to grow like a fungus on the surface. But deep and radical is always only the good.

»Indignez-vous !« by a Résistance fighter, concentration camp survivor, and co-author of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, urges us to be indignant, and rightfully so. A must-read for basically everyone!