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Finished Crime and Punishment, now reading Open Veins

In mid January i posted about started to read Crime and Punishment, fast forward to some days ago, i finished it and now im trying to read Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeno.

I feel a little down because i took to long to finish the book, considering that I'm basically a neet, brazilian developer market is wild rn, so i got lots of freetime, but mostly spend it on the computer watching youtube and playing games, i try to cope myself thinking that partly this isn't completely my fault since i was a tv baby, and my education was lacking, teen years were spent playing video games basicaly (which is how i learned english), so i never read anything before making 23 (im 24 now), trying to pick up the habit now.

Now impressions so about Open Veins and divided, i like Galeano's writing style, he uses kinda of a poetic language to make it more engaging and to make you feel the tragedy, but the time and space constant jumping makes hard to follow the point, when he doesn't do it, damn it hits heavy, stuff i never heard about like brazilian military giving sugar poisoned with arsenic to natives.

Anyway, not gonna lie, even tho this book is crucial to understanding latin america, im procrastinating in reading marxist theory, so far after two years of discovering communist I've read only the manifesto and didn't understood much of it, alls i know is capitalism is shit and socialist countries did amazing things and i want those amazing things.

so, what you people think?

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10 comments
  • Anyway, not gonna lie, even tho this book is crucial to understanding latin america, im procrastinating in reading marxist theory, so far after two years of discovering communist I’ve read only the manifesto and didn’t understood much of it, alls i know is capitalism is shit and socialist countries did amazing things and i want those amazing things.

    Ok, read some 'principles of Communism' et 'Socialism: utopian and scientific' by Engels and 'the State and Revolution' by Lenin

    They should be more precise in defining our ideology here...

    • noted. thanks for the recommendation.

      can those be understood without having a philosophy background? after i started to watch breadtube i took a interest in philosophy but still haven't took serious time to study dialects and the marxian method aka the dialectical materialism.

      • Lenin is the most accessible, though for what I read (in my translated experience) Marx and Engels weren't very jargony. I think if you've stuck around here for a while you'd be able to recognize terms, even if you don't know the formal meaning (happens to me). What's helpful for me is reading in my mother tongue. Reading in English makes everything harder to understand, even if I understand all the words

        still haven't took serious time to study dialects and the marxian method aka the dialectical materialism.

        You can read "Dialectical and historical materialism" by Stalin (I'm in the same situation as you so I haven't read it yet). From what I heard, Stalin is the most straightforward writer.

        If you read digital books check out Anna's Archive and Library Genesis. You can filter by language.

  • Dostoevsky's so good. If you're procrastinating anyways and you like Russian authors, may I recommend Tolstoy?

    I'll have to put Open Veins in my pile of books to read too...

    • yes, Tolstoy is in my list too, people recommend me him before, for now im try to focus a little on brazilian literature. thanks for recommendation.

  • Poland fact: if you miss one space in "Crime and Punishment" Polish title, it becomes "Icarus' Crime" (Zbrodnia i Kara -> Zbrodnia Ikara)

  • Don't feel bad for not reading "enough". Capitalism is indeed shit, so you can just go from there. Doing stuff irl is more important that debating the nuances of state and revolution on twitter. Check out your local social orgs - mutual help funds, soup kitchens, shelters, etc. If you have free time, they could always use your help. And you can make some like-minded friends along the way.

  • so i never read anything before making 23

    I'm in this picture and I don't like it

    i try to cope myself thinking that partly this isn't completely my fault since i was a tv baby, and my education was lacking, teen years were spent playing video games basicaly

    Definitely isn't your fault, and I don't think it was about your education tbh, mine was fine and I was the same. I think it's more being socially isolated (in my experience). It got to a point where all I did was watch yt and didn't do anything I was interested in, like playing guitar, trying programming languages or even playing videogames.

    What I ended up doing was make a channel specifically to listen to music, and pass my old channel to another account I don't ever use (so I don't delete the comments and playlists). Though every day I still open yt in the afternoon expecting the slop to appear, and feeling kinda disappointed. Not that you should do it too, if you're fine with yt.

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