Randa Mashnouk > Recent Status Updates

Excited to start autumn season with a fantasy and fiction book. I haven’t been near this genre in such a long time!

“It’s true that the world is overrun with terrorists. It’s true that the mother no longer goes to movies in theaters, and she scans for the exits in restaurants. Deeper, worse, the death everywhere, the surgical strikes, the eyes in the sky. Aleppo in the beautiful before, the ravaged after. She puts these thoughts away. If she could, she’d spend the entire day in bed.”

“For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.”

بالنسبة لي، منذ أول صفحاته وأنا متيقنة بتدرج الكتاب تحت رف الخمس نجوم.

“Darkness. The late spring sky has strangely emptied. The moon rummages down in the alleyway like somebody’s forgotten aunt.”
This kind of metaphor is why I’ve been chasing books for 20 years now.

“Earlier that year she had written me: “That is what is wrong with cold people. Not that they have ice in their souls—we all have a bit of that—but that they insist their every word and deed mirror that ice. They never learn the beauty or value of gesture. The emotional necessity. For them, it is all honesty before kindness, truth before art. Love is art, not truth. It’s like painting scenery.”

“I fell in love with her. And for some reason I could never just see that we were too different and we’d be better off ending things. I’ve always thought of myself as a rather sober person, but I discovered I have a passionate side. It came as a bit of a surprise.”

“Mostly I have felt myself becoming a servant of sadness. I am still looking for the beauty in that.”

"I was reading a poem by my idol, Wallace Stevens, in which he said, “The self is a cloister of remembered sounds.” My first response was, Yesss! How did he know that? It’s like he’s reading my mind. But my second response was, I need some new sounds to remember."

"I realize it’s frowned on to choose a mate based on something superficial like the music they love. But superficiality has been good to me."

Sort of overwhelmed, especially because this could be relatable to many girls in my country. I'm definitely gonna look for a light-hearted book to read along this one.

"أن يملك المرء شيئاً يجسّد له الحرية يمكن أن يجعله أسعد حتى مما لو نال الحرية التي يجسّدها هذا الشيء."

حتماً رائعة ومشوّقة جداً، لكن الحبكة المتداخلة داخل حبكة أخرى، والتي بدورها داخل حبكة جديدة يستحيل قراءتها لساعات متواصلة. قرائتها شيء مرهق، انتظر النهاية بفارغ الصبر. 🥲

“The more shame we carry, the more the ego wants to avoid future situations where we could experience more shame or any deeper pain. The ego, in an attempt to make sure you’re never hurt again, puts up barriers—because in every opportunity for positive change, there is also the chance of the pain of failure.”

لهاروكي ماروكامي ثقافة فنيّة مبهرة جداً وواضحة بشكلٍ رائع في هذه الرواية، سواء بالموسيقى الأوبرالية أو الأجنبية (يبدو أنه يعشق فرقة البيتلز)، أو بفنون الرسم بجميع أنواعه، منها اليابانية القديمة وغيرها العالمية. ولا شك أن كل ذلك الغنى الثقافي متجسدٌ في أسلوبه المليئ بالتشابيه والصور الحيّة جداً؛ أستطيع أن اتخيل كل تفصيلٍ وشعور وكأن القصة قصتي.

"Nonactivated peace is dull and unfamiliar. Our body and mind seek the familiar, even if it is painful, and many of us are left ultimately feeling ashamed about and confused by our behavior." — on childhood trauma and how it effects our everyday behaviors.

تشكّلت المراجعة في رأسي قبل أن أنهي الكتاب، لكني سأنتظر حتى النهاية لأكتب مراجعة شاملة عنه.
رغم ذلك، فهو من أجمل ما قرأت وأكثرهم حزناً..

Really tempted to drop it and move on. Not worth the hype at all.

"The bottom-line, take-home message brought to you by emotional agility is this: denying stress, bottling it or brooding about it is counterproductive. Avoiding stress is impossible, but what we can do is adjust our relationship to stress. It doesn’t have to own us. We can own it.
The first step is to simply accept that it exists: to show up to it by acknowledging that it’s not going away any time soon."

"If you can willingly accept the pain associated with giving up the road not taken, you can embrace the decision you did make and move forward with clarity."

"to pretend that the problems of a dual society are the same as the problems of unregulated capitalism, is to cover the sin of national plunder with the sin of national lying. The lie ignores the fact that reducing American poverty and ending white supremacy are not the same."
Learning and un-learning so much and I'm only through the first few chapters.

“Death, it seems, must be prevented whenever possible, whatever the ultimate costs, no matter how painful the period of repayment by the patient & his relatives. The fear of death is normally divisible into two parts: the fear of death itself, and the fear of the suffering that may have to be endured before death. Have we now to add a further dimension, the fear of resuscitation?” — How We Learned Not to Resuscitate.

“the only thing that matters is making a statement before one enters it. Cutting the skin of the world and leaving a scar. That’s all history is, after all: scar tissue.”

"خلاصة القول، لقد علّمناه كل شيء عن الكتاب، في ذلك الزمن الذي لم يكن يعرف فيه القراءة. لقد فتحنا عينيه على التنوع اللانهائي للأشياء الخيالية، و عرّفناه على فرح السفر العمودي، و زوّدناه بالقدرة على أن يكون في كل مكان، و خلّصناه من سلطة الزمان، و جعلناه يغطس في عزلة القارئ المسكونة بتعددٍّ عجيب.."

Respect God:
Pray working.
Pray learning, planning,
doing.
Pray creating,
teaching,
reaching.
Pray working.
Pray to focus your thoughts,
still your fears,
strengthen your prupose.
Respect God.
Shape God.
Pray working.
EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING

"In order to rise
From its own ashes
A phoenix
First
Must
Burn.
EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING"