Activity timeline
March 18, 2010
Highly entertaining; only half way through and you can see lots of disjointed pieces falling into place.
March 12, 2010
Neither deep nor enlightening nor the best writing; but entertaining and engaging. Enjoying this for what it is.
March 9, 2010
March 8, 2010
Paul added The Given Day to his library.
Everyone has the potential to "do" good. But no one really "is" good. We're all selfish, petty little monkeys who do things only for what it benefits us (a better after life, pride, haughtiness). Ultimately it doesn't matter because all the good in the world makes little impact. And ultimately this book was a fantastic waste of time; with the potential to say something meaningful, or crescendo in some higher ground of morality, spirituality and philosophy we're given what all of us know and experience — the mundane and predictable. Fairly pointless.
jnonfiction replies...
Amen. But then again, I don't know why I expected Hornby to have some blazing insight into the subject. Especially once DJ Goodballs or whatever his name was appeared on the scene.
wiseacre replies...
Yeah, I was hoping that at the very least we'd see that "GoodNews" was truly not good (we did see that he wasn't bright, at all) and the David was capable of changing, trying to be good with reason and logic; rather than being good and being completely misguided and more idealistic than a 2 year old. Ugh.
March 3, 2010
February 28, 2010
The turn in the book (and obviously the biggest, yet-to-be-resolved) part is the introduce of the "faith healer" of DJ GoodNews; when I got the awful, sinking feeling I get that perhaps the horrid film "The Love Guru" might have been inspired by this book (or any movie inspired by this book might turn into a piece of rubbish). While raises all sorts of interesting, interpersonal and extra-personal situations, it also feels quite ... out there.
It seems to me now that the plain state of being human is dramatic enough for anyone; you don't need to be a heroin addict or a performance poet to experience extremity. You just have to love someone.
February 27, 2010
I'm a good person. In most ways. But I'm beginning to think that being a good person in most ways doesn't count for anything very much, if you're a bad person in one way.
February 25, 2010
February 24, 2010
wiseacre replies...
Yeah, I was hoping that at the very least we'd see that "GoodNews" was truly not good (we did see that he wasn't bright, at all) and the David was capable of changing, trying to be good with reason and logic; rather than being good and being completely misguided and more idealistic than a 2 year old. Ugh.