no news on scotland.

i finished war and peace, or the never-ending story, about a week ago. i mean, how can someone read 5-600 pages in a single weekend and be barely over halfway through a book. that is cruel. i blame the author.

of course the book itself is brilliant. the first aspect that struck me was the first person usage. tolstoy is telling the story from his point of view, 50 years after the events. he gives wonderful descriptions of napolean, kutuzov (russian general), of the russian emporer and of the nobility. of course, the peasant class is there, but not really part of the story. they are a tool more than anything. like horses in a way are utilized and often have to die, or suffer some sort of bad accident, so too do these people. you feel bad about it, but then how much thought do we give to animals that died in battles long ago.

so the novel is epic in its scope, but that vision is narrow. 1500 pages, so he could not include everything, but in the end he seemed to stick to what he knows. maybe that is the best idea in general. write about what you know and not some bullshit you cant comprehend.

i just finished reading albert camus's ¨the stranger.¨ have to say i did not really like this book as much (although the last 60 pages of war and peace is an essay- part of the reason why the book is not really a novel- too much non-fictional extrapolating done by a first person author). one thing that interests me though is the use of the guilotine for executions.

is it better than hanging? electric chair? lethal injection? the guilotine seems to me the most efficient of all. the weight of the blade would remove the head in one shot. at the very least there is nothing really to feel (unless some of you know more about this than i do and can tell me i am wrong).

but, it seems more brutal than lethal injection. not sure where i stand on hanging. i do think the electric chair must be absolutely fucking horrible.

when an author writes about the mind of someone who is facing death or long jail time, do you think the author ever feels a twinge, something telling him/her that perhaps that subject should not be written about? superstition. i think i would avoid it entirely. but i dont see myself writing any novels any time soon. shocker.