I especially like to read literature in translation. This narrows down the overwhelming volume of reading options to something like 3% of published books. Two heads are better than one. And translators are paid by the word, so translations tend to be brief. 😊
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One of the appeals of expatriation, I had always thought, was that it allowed one to treat real life as romantic; abroad, one could credit the lies one saw through at home.
— Video night in Kathmandu by Pico Iyer (Vintage departures) (Page 236)
The Great Wall, established to keep out the world at large, was now being used to attract it.
— Video night in Kathmandu by Pico Iyer (Vintage departures) (Page 114)
Religion was a drug to some and and drugs were a religion to others. In Kathmandu some people lapsed into a narcotic haze and called it Buddhist serenity, while others had opiate dreams and called them visions. "Drugs" and "gurus," they told themselves, were almost anagrams; the high and the holy were virtual synonyms.
— Video night in Kathmandu by Pico Iyer (Vintage departures) (Page 83 - 84)
Innocence, I thought, could be its own protection; seeing no evil was halfway toward feeling no evil.
— Video night in Kathmandu by Pico Iyer (Vintage departures) (Page 51)
Only a special kind of person can remain for long in Paradise, making his peace with tranquility.
— Video night in Kathmandu by Pico Iyer (Vintage departures) (Page 51)
Pico Iyer on Bali.
"mistakes can, in their way, be as revealing as epiphanies, and even a wrong impression may say as much about a place as a right one."
— Video night in Kathmandu by Pico Iyer (Vintage departures) (Page 28)
Every foreigner is a messenger from a world of dreams.
— Video night in Kathmandu by Pico Iyer (Vintage departures) (Page 16)
This is one of Pico Iyer's older and often mentioned works.
I think I heard about this on Korea Deconstructed podcast.
One of Edith Wharton’s most acclaimed works, The Custom of the Country is a blistering …
Bret Easton Ellis recommended this book as the true Great American Novel.
In this “exquisite personal blend of philosophy and engagement, inner quiet and worldly life" (Los …
I don't know if it's because I'm getting older, but Pico Iyer's thoughtful prose on the full spectrum of life, creativity, the seasons, Japan, Zen, and Table Tennis, resonates deeply with me.
I look forward to returning to this unusual mix of memoir and philosophy.
