Leo Tolstoy

The Russian novelist and moral philosopher Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) ranks as one of the world's great writers, and his War and Peace has been called the greatest novel ever written.

Leo Tolstoy was one of the great rebels of all time, a man who during a long and stormy life was at odds with Church, government, literary tradition, and his own family. Yet he was a conservative, obsessed by the idea of God in an age of scientific positivism. He brought the art of the realistic novel to its highest development. Tolstoy's brooding concern for death made him one of the precursors of existentialism. Yet the bustling spirit that animates his novels conveys--perhaps--more of life than life itself.

Tolstoy's father, Count Nikolay Ilyich Tolstoy, came of a noble family dating back to the 14th century and prominent from the time of Peter I. Both Tolstoy's father and grandfather had a passion for gambling and had exhausted the family wealth.


Essential Facts
1.Tolstoy lost his mother when he was only two years old and his father seven years later.
2.Tolstoy was sent to law school but soon returned home. His teachers found him completely unwilling to learn.
3.Tolstoy loved to gamble and as a young man often found himself in debt due to his gambling habit.
4.Tolstoy rarely hung out with the writers of his time. He found them too liberal and too fascinated with Western (European and American) living styles.
5.Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi were inspired by Tolstoy’s philosophy of nonviolence.


http://www.enotes.com/authors/leo-tolstoy

Stream of Consciousness and Illusion

What is all this? What is all this stuff around me, this stream of experiences that I seem to be having all the time?

Throughout history there have been people who say it is all illusion. I think they may be right. But if they are right what could this mean? If you just say "It's all an illusion" this gets you nowhere - except that a whole lot of other questions appear. Why should we all be victims of an illusion, instead of seeing things the way they really are? What sort of illusion is it anyway? Why is it like that and not some other way? Is it possible to see through the illusion? And if so what happens next.

These are difficult questions, but if the stream of consciousness is an illusion we should be trying to answer them, rather than more conventional questions about consciousness. I shall explore these questions, though I cannot claim that I will answer them. In doing so I shall rely on two methods. First there are the methods of science; based on theorising and hypothesis testing - on doing experiments to find out how the world works. Second there is disciplined observation - watching experience as it happens to find out how it really seems. This sounds odd. You might say that your own experience is infallible - that if you say it is like this for you then no one can prove you wrong. I only suggest you look a bit more carefully. Perhaps then it won't seem quite the way you thought it did before. I suggest that both these methods are helpful for penetrating the illusion - if illusion it is.

We must be clear what is meant by the word 'illusion'. An illusion is not something that does not exist, like a phantom or phlogiston. Rather, it is something that it is not what it appears to be, like a visual illusion or a mirage. When I say that consciousness is an illusion I do not mean that consciousness does not exist. I mean that consciousness is not what it appears to be. If it seems to be a continuous stream of rich and detailed experiences, happening one after the other to a conscious person, this is the illusion.

Into the Wild .. Characters

Christopher Johnson McCandless (main Character)
Novel revolves around his wild journey across the United States. McCandless is a young and successful college graduate with a good job and money in the bank who one day decides to up and disappear in response to his father’s indiscretions, giving away his money and becoming homeless. With a father who constantly pushed him to perfection, McCandless could no longer deal with life and spitefully left everything he knew. He eventually ends up in the wilds of Alaska, living in a bus, only to pass away before he has a chance to return to civilization. Krakauer does directly attempt to show McCandless’s thinking, but acknowledges that his, Krakauer’s, these thoughts might be inaccurate. Instead Krakauer focuses on using indirect characterization, using a great deal of detail to define McCandless’s character.


Wayne Westerberg
After McCandless runs from his family, particularly his father, he runs across Wayne who becomes a close friend and a father figure. Because he does not judge Chris, Wayne acts an inspiration to McCandless. Despite their closeness, McCandless leaves Carthage to wander around again, but maintain friendship with Westerberg through letters. Westerberg is also indirectly characterized through his behavior toward McCandless.


Samuel Walter McCandless, Jr.
As McCandless’s father, Walt becomes the root of Krakauer’s theories on why McCandless ran off as he did. Walt himself is a rich man and attempts to persuade McCandless to follow his father’s footsteps. After five years of dwelling on his anger against his father, McCandless decides that he stand his parents and disappears, attempting to teach his them a lesson as well. Walt is similarly indirectly characterized, as an opposing figure to McCandless.


Billie McCandless
Mother of McCandless, is not revealed much my Jon Krakauer except for a few moments in McCandless’s earlier life. She deeply mourns when discovering her son disappeared.


Carine McCandless
As McCandless’s sister, Carine is very close to him and he is able to share his feelings with her, the only member of his family he feels comfortable doing so with. McCandless writes letters to Carine throughout the five years after he learns of his father’s anger towards him.


Jan Burres
As a drifter herself, Jan meets McCandless as he arrives tired and hungry by the side of the road. Along with her boyfriend, she takes care of McCandless, attempting to nurture his desire to live free of society, but also to warn him of the dangers in his actions. She tries to convince him of the errors of his ways and send him back to his mother as she is estranged from her own son. She is intrigued by him and decides that he will eventually give up his wandering lifestyle. As a motherly figure in his life, Burres is a key individual in his journey.


Ronald Franz
Ronald is an eighty year old widower, whose son and wife passed away forty years earlier, leaving him an empty man. Because of his grief, Franz becomes a kind soul trying to find meaning in life. When he meets McCandless, he immediately feels the desire to offer his advice. McCandless convinces Franz about the excitement of leaving the material word and entering the road. In the end, Franz is alone, on the road and hoping for death.


http://www.course-notes.org

Into the Wild .. Use of the Third Person

McCandless remains a somewhat ghostly presence even in this biography of his life. Although Krakauer uses frequent excerpts from Chris's personal journals, the reader always feels somewhat distanced, partly owing to his habit of writing about himself in the third person under an assumed name. Only Chris's final journal entries are written in the first person and signed with his real name, perhaps underscoring the shocking realization of first the possibility and then the certainty of his own imminent death.

The tone of these final words is frightened at first, then rueful and courageous, and finally serene and reconciled. Other than these journal extracts, all of the information about McCandless is fragmentary and pieced together from the testimony of people who had met him on his journeys.

Krakauer uses third person omniscient in Into the Wild to prove to the readers that McCandless was a simple boy, similar to everyone else. Even tough McCandless does not wish to fit in with the reset of the world, or even his own family, Krakauer clearly explains why. Through Krakauer’s use of third person omniscient point of view, the reader can understand McCandless’s want for escape from the drama in his family, the stress from education, and a from a routinely life.



..

Into The Wild .. The Plot

McCandless escapes his life, to being tramping. He changes his name to Alexander Supertramp in order to escape from his previous life, and barricade anyone from tracking him. During his trip to wherever the road leads him, McCandless encounters numerous friendly individuals who do not judge his lifestyle and offer him shelter. He continues to contact some of these people through letters. Eventually, McCandless plans to travel to the Stampede Trail in Alaska, to spend several months in an abandoned bus. McCandless cannot strive on that bus, he runs out of nutrition and is unable to move. As a result McCandless dies in the bus. Krakauer utilizes McCandless’s journal and many other sources to trace McCandless’s story and journey.

Into The Wild .. Kindness & Evil Themes 2

Kindness of People

Regardless the belief that evil people are everywhere, McCandless’s story disagrees. McCandless meets many people, who help him obtain a job, offer him a place to stay and don’t judge his outlook on life. Franz, Westerberg, and Burres are some of the few very friendly people McCandless meets that welcome him.

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Evil of money

McCandless actions prove that wealth is useless. He abandons his cash, his car, and his other possessions to tramp. McCandless’s tramping is a bold statement against the corruption, conflict, and hypocrisy present in the word due to the existence of money.

Into the Wild .. Boy in Nature Theme

Boy's role in nature is the general theme of Into the Wild. The subject of the book, Chris McCandless, believes that boy's ultimate joy can only be found in communion with nature. McCandless is a greedy reader, and his favorite authors are quoted frequently to support McCandless's romantic view of natural communion. Jack London and Henry David Thoreau are two of McCandless's favorite authors, and their immense respect for nature influences the impressionable young man. However, nature is a fickle beast, turning from friendly ally to cruel enemy in the blink of an eye. McCandless is not insensible to this fact. His personal experience and the literary accounts he enjoys reading both teach him that nature's laws do not change for any man. Natural cause and effect can work just as easily against.

McCandless .. Why ?? My Own Responce

"God, he was a smart kid..." So why did McCandless trade a bright future--a college education, material comfort, uncommon ability and charm for death by starvation in an abandoned bus in the woods of Alaska? This is the question that Jon Krakauer's book tries to answer. While it doesn't—cannot—answer the question with certainty, Into the Wild does shed considerable light along the way. Not only about McCandless's "Alaskan odyssey," but also the forces that drive people to drop out of society and test themselves in other ways. Into the Wild shows that McCandless, while extreme, was hardly unique; the author makes the hermit into one of us, something McCandless himself could never pull off. By book's end, McCandless isn't merely a newspaper clipping, but a sympathetic, oddly magnetic personality. Whether he was "a courageous idealist, or a reckless idiot," you won't soon forget Christopher McCandless.

Into The Wild 2

Jon Krakauer constructs a clarifying prism through which he reassembles the disquieting facts of McCandless's short life. Admitting an interest that borders on obsession, he searches for the clues to the dries and desires that propelled McCandless. Digging deeply, he takes an inherently compelling mystery and unravels the larger riddles it holds: the profound pull of the American wilderness on our imagination; the allure of high-risk activities to young men of a certain cast of mind; the complex, charged bond between fathers and sons.

When McCandless's innocent mistakes turn out to be irreversible and fatal, he becomes the stuff of tabloid headlines and is dismissed for his naiveté, pretensions, and hubris. He is said to have had a death wish but wanting to die is a very different thing from being compelled to look over the edge. Krakauer brings McCandless's uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows, and the peril, adversity , and renunciation sought by this enigmatic young man are illuminated with a rare understanding and not an ounce of sentimentality.

Into The Wild 1

In April 1992 a young man from a good family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.

Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and , unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw the maps away. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild.

The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen Review

When Peter Matthiessen embarks on his journey to Crystal Monestary in The Snow Leopard, he is unsure of his own intentions and expectations for the trip. In the Prologue of the book, he states, “Where did I imagine I was going, where and why?” (p. 3). It is assumed that he is traveling in pursuit of the allusive snow leopard, yet with his establishment of death and suffering from the start of his journaling, Matthiessen makes it clear that, in the simplest of terms, the destination of his journey is into the self, into the true nature of suffering.
But even in his despair, Mattheissen has finally achieved success. For the first time in the book, he has attained his Roshi’s advice to “expect nothing.” He finally has reached a state, not of change, success or failure, but of transformation. It is a fluid state that embraces the fullness of every moment and does not question the suchness of suffering and struggle. By accepting himself and the world around him, Mattheissen has achieved the ultimate success. He has succeeded in seeing the snow leopard, if not in its natural environment then at least the one that resides within Mattheissen himself.

Happy Eid to All

Hppay Eid everyone..

They siad the Eid might be on thersday or Friday, but we do not know.
I'm so sad because this is my secound Eid without my family. The Eid is not just be happy, the Eid is to be with the people you love to live the happyness of Eid. The idea of Eid is to celebate the end of Ramadan and the fasting by going pray Eid salat and visit the family and friends to celebrate with them and just have fun and live the moment. In Eid, people usually give some of there money to the poor people to help them and draw a smile on there faces and enjoy the Eid.

Living in The Desert

When i read the book of Robyn Davidson, I remebered on of my trips to the desert and how she was stragling with cameles and the lonlyness. Once i went with some friends to the desert for two days to enjoy the spring, just to relax from the calsses and the city's problems. We toke some food and one lamp to cock it out there and some water and other important things. The trip of two days became five days. We went to an area outsside jeddah called Assfan (200 km north). The weather was wenderful espicially at night. We just setted there telling each other stories and some confessions of what we think about each other. That was a good thing we takked about us and what things we do not like about each other so everyone can take care of his friend and respict hem. We had some problems with the food, we were baying sheeps from the bedouins who live there. That was the most relaxing trip i have ever had, we discoverd new places, had great time with each other and we had a wonderful experiance.

Road Trips

I like road trips especially when i go with my family and friends. We discover new places new cities and other people and how do they live. But i like it more when i drive by my self and play the music and enjoy the trip. Other thing, i experience other life style and just stick with what i have. Further more, i don't care about the time and just drive until i arrive my distance. The bad thing is when i go back home i had a bad feeling and wish that i didn't do this trip

Here is some pics from my last road trips with my fam and my friends.

me and my family preparing for a road Trip

my father on the road

short break

off-road trip with friends

If u r intersted in these kinds of trips u can have a look at some of these books :

The Open Road, The Endless Ocean, Eternal Skies. As someone who has had a life long love of travel, and who doesn't plan on staying a homebody anytime soon, this lens combines my love of travel with some of the best travel writing I've read and enjoyed, as well as some of my own travel stories.

Through Painted Deserts, by Donald Miller. This is one I actually found in the "Christian Non-Fiction" section, which can be unfair. There's no question Miller is a Christian, but he's a writer first and foremost, he's not preachy, and his questioning of his own faith, of reasons for existence, of who and what he is or is becoming is reminiscent of the fantastic soul searching that came from the travel writing of the Beat generation. Miller's account of his trip is great, going through the moments of beauty, the necessity of good road trip music, and admitting his moments of embarrassment and fear as freely as any other part of his journey.

A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins. This is one of the all time modern classics in travel literature, as Peter Jenkins recalls the story of his 1973-1975 walk from New York to New Orleans. For many readers, this remains a rare travel book that grips you and keeps you. Known as a travel writer who will walk anywhere, including Alaska and China, Peter Jenkins says, "I started out searching for myself and my country and found both." That sums up what travel writing should be all about.

Blue Highways: A Journey Into America, by William Least Heat-Moon. This is an auto-biographical travel journey taken by Heat-Mean in 1978. After separating from his wife and losing his job, Heat-Moon decided to take an extended road trip around the United States, sticking to "Blue Highways," a term to refer to small out of the way roads connecting rural America (which were drawn in blue in the old Rand McNally atlases). So Heat-Moon outfits his van, named "Ghost Dancing" and takes off on a 3-month soul-searching tour of the United States. The book chronicles the 13,000 mile journey and the people he meets along the way, as he steers clear of cities and interstates, avoiding fast food and exploring local American culture on a journey that is just as amazing today as when he first took the journey.


and for more books u can visit this website
http://www.squidoo.com/travel-writing-novels

Public Transport

Hi blogers as youtubers loooools,

In this post I'm gonna talk about the public transport buses, trains, cars...whatever.I like the transport system here in the UK it is easy and u can go every where, just push the stop button. The thing is, there is no freedom for someone like me, i like to have my own car whatever it costs me.I do not want to Wait for a bus or walk to the bus stop. some times the bus doesn't show up and because of that I'm late for a class or something important, but that happen only in the morning.

Other thing i like is the trains, i can find a train to any where here in the UK but i hate it when there are some train changes and the other thing when a train in terminate or they just cancel the trip. Last Holiday when i was going to travel to Saudi and i took the train to London. The train broke just like that and stopped in the middle between Nottingham and London and i have a flight just after 2 Horus. u may say why u didn't go early ?? i say the Trina was stopping every 15 mins for 20 mins each ... then when the train has terminated they said we are sorry there is a bus u can take to King's cross London and it will take 2 hours .. Oh god the I'm gonna miss the flight.. after that i found a taxi to London and he took £70 .

Nothing is complete and in the end it's a good way to travel and cheap as well.

see yaa

Crying on the Street

Hi again,

When we arrived here , everything was different, the life style and how everything is running. I thought i will struggle with this different life in the UK but it was simple, just do it in order and stay organised and keep everything in mind and work harder.





First i decided to discover Nottingham and search for a house, it was not hard but not easy. I went to the University in the first day, and it was a good start knowing new people and see how it is going to be in the course. One thing i hate here is walking,
i hate walking but thank you god there are buses but some times when i wake up late in the morning and go to the bus stop and wait in that cold weather i almost kill my self loooools.






The first month was good and everything is going in the right way, but i started to miss my family and feel lonely. Once i went to have a cigarette outside the house late at night and thinking about my mother and father, i stayed outside there for two hours of depression just crying and thinking about them, i did not feel my self and it was very cold, but there were good feelings after all that crying and sadness. I came here just to make them proud of me and that is the only thing that gives me the power to go ahead and succeed.

No Gains without Pains

When i had the chance to study in the UK i was like a child, asking everyone who had an experience there, searching in the webs to find out what should i do and where i can go . I found good info but it was not enough for me.


I was staying all the night awake just thinking about this new country. I had some problems to get everything completed and once i was full of difficulties and i had a car accident in front of the British Consulate, i went home and told my mother i gave up I'm not going . She was encouraging me and said ''No Gains without Pains'' then she left me alone. I was thinking this hard i can not do this but when she said that it was like waking me up from a nightmare.

After all that everything was ready and my flight is in the next day. I was sad because of leaving my family and my country. My sister did a party for me but i was sitting with them and show them that I'm happy. When i was ready to go to the airport, it was a hard moments. I was hardly holding my tears and trying to save them from falling in front of my mother.


To Be Continued

First Time

Hi everyone, This is me Mohammed and welcome to my blog.
To be honest, this is my first time writing about me and my life so forgive me if there are
any mistakes or something like that.

First i want to talk about my self , i was born in Alnamas which is located in the south of Saudi. I lived there for 8 years then me and my family moved to Jeddah. I love music, movies, food, cars and any thing related to it, traveling, met new people and make different friendships and many things that i can enjoy.
I'm a student in KAU but now i study in The UK in the Universty of Nottingham. I have learned alot here - in the UK - and my life became different and my personality as well.



I miss my family especially Mom and my little sister Mariam, she is two years old now, when i first traveld to the UK she was trying to talk but not clearly and now she is speaking alot but in a children's language. A month ago, my mouther phoned me and said there is someone wants to talk with you, she was Mariam saying my name ''hammad .. hammad .. we went to the sea and there were alot of water'', she was repeating that sentence and i was speechless and could not say a ward. I was almost crying and want to respond to her but i could not, I was happy and sad in the same time. I miss her and miss all of my family and friends and Jeddah.

see you in the next blog