Hello World, it’s me again! A month has passed since the April TBR video, and what do we have as a result? By today (8th of May) when I’m recording, I’ve finished 2,5 books from the TBR list, “The Outsider” and “Airport”. Plus one more audiobook that wasn’t on my list, and 7 volumes of “The Promised Neverland” manga.

This post is a combination of things I’ve spoke in the April TBR video and the video that is embedded into this post. If you prefer audio format to text, you are welcome to watch the video.

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Does it also happen to you, that when you just set reading plans, they always go sideways and you don’t want to read the books you’ve planned? Or during the time you’ve planned, you failed to find a lot of time for reading? Well, that’s what happened to me in April, but I’ll just make new plans for May and move on, because I’m reading for pleasure, for fun. 2 books out of 7 is not a bad result. Percentage wise I’m usually less successful with my yearly TBR list.

Let’s talk about the books!

“The Outsider” / “The Stranger” by Albert Camus translated from the French by Joseph Laredo

It’s a very short book that has been considered a classic of twentieth-century literature. The book was written by Albert Camus during the early 1940s in occupied France. It was published in 1942 without censorship or omission. It was several times adapted for films as well as referenced in different media.

Just look at the first two opening sentences:

“Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know.”

Without any other details given, we can imagine so many ways this story can go. And that is what is so brilliant about it. I’d say it’s a clickbait. Because the moment you see these sentences you are hooked up to read the story. The novel is set in French Algeria and follows the life of a man who seems emotionally detached from the world around him or irritated by it.

Until the very end, the sense of strangeness, of absurdity didn’t leave me. Everything that was happening was wrapped with strangeness. The character had his existential crisis or in general, was weird. Somehow, in a lot of books lately, I stumble into a situation when I catch myself thinking “That couldn’t have happened, no one would act like that in real life. This sequence of events is not believable. The author put them together to fit the story…” and so on. Either I’m deliberately searching for those moments or I’ve read enough stories to spot them easily, I don’t know. But it happened several times lately.

The whole book is a hardly believable sequence of events. I had to read some parts of it aloud not to lose the sense of what was going on. Nevertheless, it made me think about life, freedom, societal judgment, and what it means to be different.

I’d talk about my thoughts throughout the reading, if you don’t want to hear any spoilers, scroll to the next book title.

Let’s start from the beginning. 

[Chapter One with funerals.] In every scene, I feel Meursault’s discomfort. The discomfort of being there at the funeral, discomfort from observing the people around, the discomfort of being in his skin, his clothes. It feels like he wants to disappear. He is so cold, not just detached. I can and at the same time can’t understand his joy of entering the bus and going back to his routine. It’s of course a stressful event – the funerals and everybody would want it to be over.

But it’s your mother, I would expect him to be more disturbed by this whole business, if he’d be a normal person. As we see, the old people are more invested in his mom’s life (and death).I was surprised by the question about his mother’s age that he failed to answer, I’ll read the quote:

Was she old? I answered, “Fairly”, because I didn’t know exactly.
How?! I mean, how can you not know?! Plus or minus a year or two, but how far away and how wrong could be your guess?

Another quote that grabbed my attention was from the warden warden and the way he twisted his sentence:

You see, she had friends here, people of her own age. She could share her interests with them. You’re a young man, a different generation and she must have been bored living with you.

Not the other way around. It also feels like a reproach as well as a poke that he doesn’t have friends of his own age, or of similar interests.

[Chapter Two.] My Questions are only growing in numbers. Why is he still justifying himself in from of his boss? Even if it’s only in his head. Mother’s death is a valid reason not just to take a few days off, but also to completely fall apart and fall into depression. Or at least cry for a week. Instead, he decides to go swimming and flirt with his ex-colleague.

Another quote that I wrote down in my notes

She wanted to know when (meaning when the mother died), so I said, ‘Yesterday.’ She recoiled slightly but made no remark. I felt like telling her that it wasn’t my fault, but I stopped myself because I remembered that I’d already said that to my boss. It didn’t mean anything. In any case, you’re always partly to blame. 

That’s a tricky sentence, about the fault and the blame, and it feels like the sentence is not only about Meursault’s case, but it is addressed to the reader as well, to think about. Are we to be blamed for anybody’s death? Or could we avoid that fault and blame if we do something right right now?

A few times we hear about Meursault’s exercise book full of things that amuse him. Is it some kind of his link to this world? He’s surprisingly observant for a man who doesn’t care. 

There was a great sentence describing the relationship between Meursault’s neighbor and his dog. “They’ve been together for eight years…” Sounds sweet, until you hear about the relationship itself, and how abusive they are.

[Chapter Three.] Why his neighbor would want his advice? What makes him (the neighbor) think that Meursalt is knowledgeable? Or people around him in the city and in the house are broken so much more that he’s like a high class among them? I don’t think so.

This neighbor who is asking for advice is Raymond. A typical tyrant and abuser, who says “I love you, but you deserve to be bitten.” WHY? Is this dude mad? What did his girlfriend do to deserve any of his angry vindictive thoughts?

He wanted to write her a letter which would really hurt and at the same time make her sorry”. Then, when she came back, he’d go to bed with her, and “right at the crucial moment he’d spit in her face and throw her out.

Though, the main character is as sick supporting all this “punishment” business. Another quote:

I did my best to please Raymond because I had no reason not to please him.

What? Since when the default option is to please someone, unless otherwise? And that means he supports such harsh behavior towards women since this story of vindictiveness is not a good enough reason not to please Raymond.

[Chapter Four.] He told Marie about the old man. Why didn’t he tell her everything about Raymond’s letter and punishment idea?! Coward.

Is there any parallel between the neighbor with the dog and the one who wanted to punish his mistress? Mistress, masters,…

And again, a neighbor is asking for his opinion. How Meursault would know what happens with the dog at the police station when he doesn’t have a dog and doesn’t work at the police?!

[Chapter Five.] Another quote:

He (the boss) then asked me if I wasn’t interested in changing my life. I replied that you could never change your life, that in any case, one life was as good as another, and that I wasn’t at all dissatisfied with mine here.

What an interesting belief, he should watch something like “change your life in one week” videos, maybe that would help. I can agree with his boss. Meursault has no ambition, and evades the questions – that’s disastrous in the business world.

Another great event of this chapter. Marie proposed. And Meursault said “YES” Why? He doesn’t love her and says it doesn’t matter… Ooooh… they are all crazy and absurd in this book. Even after hearing that she still wants to marry him.

[Chapter Six.] Seeing another person’s marriage for a second made him think of this, or what?

“For the first time perhaps I really thought I’d get married.”

At least one smart thought:

… the time to have lunch was when you felt hungry…

Somehow I thought that the initial funeral event was something big, but it’s the middle of the book now, and we barely have any mention of it anymore, only some tiny bits about the son’s mourning.

A relatively peaceful scene turned into an action movie in one page. Though Raymond in this case is more important as a character since it’s his problem. Fight, knife, blows.

I didn’t make much notes about the second part of the book. At first, I was too shocked by the senseless murder and was waiting for some explanation. Why there were 5 shots? Was it a revenge for a friend? Nervous breakdown? Then I realized there would be no explanation, there could be none with a character like that. The second part of the book focuses on the trial process, highlighting society’s reaction to Meursault’s behavior and personal beliefs rather than to the crime itself. And we don’t see anybody actually caring about the dead man.

“Airport” by Arthur Hailey

I’ve heard many reviews praising the author’s books and describing him as a master of occupational novels. Now, after finishing the book, I can only agree with this opinion. Throughout the whole book, I felt like I was part of the airport or airline crew.

I listened to this book on Audible, and I must compliment the narrator, BJ Harrison. He did a great job building up pressure at crucial moments by finding the right speed and tone.

I don’t have as many notes about the “Airport” as I had for “The Outsider”. But there are several moments that I liked and wanted to mention.

The book was written and published in the 1960s, times of significant development in the aviation industry when jet aircraft were introduced and international travel was becoming more and more popular. Even though it’s a work of fiction, I can’t imagine how much time Arthur Hailey had to spend at an airport to absorb and collect such intricate data. The book feels very realistic.

In addition to the feeling of being a part of the airport crew, this book gave me an understanding of how many things are happening behind the scenes. When each passenger thinks of their own comfort, the airport and airline crews have to think of and manage everybody’s comfort and safety. It’s insane how much logistics is required to run an airport.

I liked the circular structure of the book, we started with Mel, the manager of the airport and we ended with him on the last page.

I also enjoyed the evolution of Mel’s brother, Keith. We see how tough, complicated, and life-changing his job as a Traffic Controller is. We might think all the action happens in the air, but there are plenty of planning and real-time control that’s happening in the controller’s room.

Each character has their distinctive features, background, and an important role in the story. They provided a glimpse into different aspects of the industry.

The book covers less than a day and keeps you engaged all this time.

Let me read you one quote, the idea mentioned in it, never came to my mind before, but now it explains so much:
Unfortunately, in a good many places. All our early airports were imitations of railway stations because designers had to draw on experience from somewhere, and railroad experience was all they had. Afterward, the habit remained. It’s the reason, nowadays, we have so many ‘straight line airports, where terminals stretch on and on, and passengers must walk for miles.

I can only try to imagine how hard it is to plan a layout of the airport, accommodate for the increasing load, and so on. But I feel that even in the new airports this idea of an airport being a railway station for planes still stays. There are two newly opened airports that I’ve been to in Berlin and in Istanbul. Berlin is slightly more minimalistic in that sense, the one in Istanbul looks more like a shopping mall that also provides aviation services and wants to get all your money rather than being “designed for people”. I think I had a short video from there, I’ll put it in.

Anyway, back to the book. There was an adaptation of this book, right after it was published, I didn’t have a chance to watch it yet, but I checked the posters of the movie and saw the portraits of the actors. They are so neatly picked to match the characters, it’s amazing. Even though the ratings on rottentomatoes and IMDB are not the best, I want to watch it. 

Let me know if you read “Airport” and what were your thoughts. Do you like occupational novels in general?

“The Last of the Moon Girls” by Barbara Davis

I don’t know what made me pick up this book. I listened to it on Audible. From the title and first chapters, I thought it would be some fantasy-like story, but no, there was no big magic, some special senses, but they didn’t affect anything that was going on around.

It was an easy-to-follow book. When we finally got to the troubles part it was too predictable “whodunnit”, except for the detailed reasons. So the mystery part for me wasn’t the best.

Instead, I enjoyed the ideas that the author tried to put into the book: finding yourself, forgiving, moving on with life, and creating your own history, instead of blindly following outdated family traditions. It was cute. The journey of the main character Lizzy to find peace with herself, was the main reason for me to finish the book.

Though again, this book gave me the same feeling that I’ve mentioned while talking about “The Outsider”, at some moments I thought that some events were brought together to just glue the story. I’ll explain. 

Lizzy is a successful creative director in a perfume company in New York. One day she receives the news about her grandmother’s death. She comes back to her hometown Salem Creek and that brings up a lot of stories from the past, as well as a lot of decisions that need to be made. Lizzy inherited books with life-stories of her ancestors as well as notes left for her by her grandmother Althea. So we see those notes as separators between the events in the present. In a few chapters, those notes from Althea annoyingly matched the events that Lizzy was going through. It felt like grandmother predicted everything even the timing of what will happen and when. I think I’d like it more if those notes had been in a more random order, that would make it look like she thought of everything, but wasn’t predicting the future.

That’s my 5 cents about this book.

“The Promised Neverland” manga series.

A long time ago I watched the first season of the anime based on that story, then it disappeared from my radar. When I remembered about it somewhere in 2021, I found that I could take it from my library in the Libby app. I’ve read all the available volumes they had back then and had to stop again. Last month I was browsing the list of available books in the app and stumbled upon one of the next volumes. Now they are all available, so I decided to continue while there is such a good opportunity and read the next 7 volumes. 

Each volume is about 200 pages, so they are quick to read.

I don’t know how to talk about it without spoilers, but I’ll try. The story is written by Kaiu Shirai and illustrated by Posuka Demizu. It’s all happening in a dystopian universe. The story revolves around a group of orphans at the Grace Field House. They live comfortably, take care of each other, separate all the chores, and study hard. They live under the care of a woman whom they call “Mama”. From time to time one of the children is taken away into a foster family, at least they think so. One day, a little girl who’s being adopted forgets her favorite plush bunny, and two grown-up kids decide to run to the gate to give it to her. The things they discover there, that their home is a farm raising human children to be fed to demons, change everything in their life. Now they have to figure out a way to escape and survive.

The themes of freedom, survival, ethical compromises, human rights, and even human trafficking are deeply explored here. Covered with children’s faces and imaginary demons, the story engages you in a deeply emotional journey, where you always crave to know “what’s going to happen next?”.

I wouldn’t go deeply into details, I think I’ll give it another big review when I finish all volumes. But if you never heard of this manga series before – check it out.

That was it for today! Thank you for reading 🙂