Welcome to Book Oblivion - I'm Jessica. I read with wonder and curiosity and write about what I read here. We have a community of readers meeting together several times a month to discuss literature and philosophy. Join our community to read along with us.
Franz Kafka and Haruki Murakami There is an apparent connection between Franz Kafka’s story, The Metamorphosis, and Haruki Murakami’s work, “Samsa in Love.” It might be one of the most bizarre re-workings ever, but I suspect Kafka wouldn’t have it […]
A Tale of Two Samsas: Kafka’s and Murakami’s Literary Connection Read More »
Born to Jewish parents in Lithuania on January 12, 1906, the life path of Emmanuel Levinas led him across several countries and through two world wars. He passed away on December 25, 1995.
The year is 1984. George Orwell’s dystopian future has arrived. Ronald Regan is president-elect, and Wes Craven’s nightmare occupies Elm Street. Not only is it a leap year, but it is the year of the rat, according to the Chinese
Transforming 1984: The Pursuit of Wisdom and Wonder With How We Read Read More »
In her essay collection, Upstream, Mary Oliver describes the antidote to confusion she found in literature – first reading and then writing – as a kind of standing with otherness in the world.
Mary Oliver Finds the Antidote to Confusion in Literature Read More »
Offering a fresh perspective and a hope for connection amidst the closed doors of social distancing, Georg Simmel is emerging as a thinker for our contemporary cultural moment.
Bridge and Door: Georg Simmel on How Separation Inspires Human Connection Read More »
A fresh perspective on the imbalance between animals and humans, Haruki Murakami’s short story The Elephant Vanishes explores the troubling paradoxes hiding in a relationship built on exploitation instead of reciprocity.
The Role of Reciprocity in Nature in Haruki Murakami’s The Elephant Vanishes Read More »
Marilyn McEntyre collects her meditations on classic and contemporary poetry in When Poets Pray and offers the reader a deep reverence for language and God.
Born in 1908 in Paris, France, the French philosopher, Simone de Beauvoir, developed as a writer, intellectual, and activist with radical existential courage.
Simone de Beauvoir on The Ethics of Ambiguity and Existential Courage Read More »
In Gravity and Grace, Simone Weil offers supernatural insight on attention and suffering and how to live in contradiction.
Simone Weil on the Generosity of Attention in Gravity and Grace Read More »
Cultural criticism from Immanuel Kant to Walter Benjamin to Martin Scorsese stems from a high view of art and a low view of human cognition.
Walter Benjamin on the Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction Read More »
Genius and Ink: Virginia Woolf on How to Read is a newly packaged collection of some of the most beautiful prose Virginia Woolf has written on the creative, radical, and rebellious act of reading.
In his 1951 short story, The Rocket Man, Ray Bradbury explores the seduction of the open sky that inspires Elton John’s iconic song by the same name.
Ray Bradbury on the Seduction of Space in The Rocket Man Read More »
Meaning is lost in translation between the original Japanese and the English translation of Haruki Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.
Lost in Translation: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World Read More »
In approaching rhetoric, Kenneth Burke teases out a theory of reading that incorporates rhythm and promotes a harmony of our experiences.
Kenneth Burke considers every influence of a rhetorical act and develops a theory of identification that offers readers a new way to think about rhetoric.
