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CommittedCommitted, BookDispatches From A Psychiatrist in Training
by Stern, AdamBook - 2021Book, 2021
carolwu96's rating:
Added Mar 23, 2024
carolwu96's rating:
Added Feb 25, 2024
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Character Analysis 💥 Charles Bovary
(Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert)
To prepare for Jean Amery’s “Charles Bovary, A Country Doctor,” a retelling of Madame Bovary from her cuckolded husband’s perspective, I reread Flaubert’s masterpiece.
My memory of Charles had been blurry. He loved Emma but was unaware of her affairs and whereabouts. His trust in her was blind, but so was his understanding of her dreams and character.
A reread confirmed these opinions——in fact, Flaubert appears to have made Charles amorphous with deliberation. A mediocre doctor, lackluster son, and absent father, Charles’s one noteworthy identity is the husband of radiant Emma Bovary. No wonder he lives in her shadow, both in the book and as a literary figure——while Emma arouses in the reader both tenderness for her sentimentality and repulsion from her selfishness, Charles is as bland as a piece of furniture.
Despite Charles’s apparent insignificance, however, his underlying dominance is revealed through the book’s title. While Jane Austen chose to highlight her Emma’s self-agency by making her name the title, “Madame Bovary” is a title our protagonist shares with two other characters and which she has only due to her relationship with Charles. Flaubert also structurally stifles her by both opening and closing the book with Charles’s life, rather than hers.
Emma remains chained to Charles even in death. After spending her life futilely escaping from her marriage, she is buried in her bridal dress. Emma’s tragedy began when she became “Madame Bovary”; it will only end when both her body and the remnants of her marriage are in tatters.
Rereading Madame Bovary has made me doubtful about Amery’s retelling. Charles already has too great a role, too persistent a voice in a book purportedly about someone else. And why does his retelling get to be called “Charles Bovary, Country Doctor,” when hers doesn’t even include her name?
Had Amery’s retelling been a piece of performance art, I would have applauded it as an accurate social critique.
For while a woman’s voice is often stolen even in her own story, when a man does not like a narrative, he simply tells it again.
For more book / character analysis, visit me on Ins @ RandomStuffIReadCharacter Analysis 💥 Charles Bovary
(Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert)
To prepare for Jean Amery’s “Charles Bovary, A Country Doctor,” a retelling of Madame Bovary from her cuckolded husband’s perspective, I reread Flaubert’s masterpiece.…
The Count of Monte CristoThe Count of Monte Cristo, Book
by Dumas, AlexandreBook - 2009 | New edition with revised translationBook, 2009. New edition with revised translation
carolwu96's rating:
Added Feb 12, 2024
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A captivating read. A paragon of “the revenge story,” The Count of Monte Cristo follows a framed man, Edmond Dantes, on his journey of vengeance against his four injurers: one greedy for his wallet, one bitter of his success, one covetous of his fiancee, and an ambitious prosecutor who simply decided to make him the scapegoat on his rise to power.
After spending fourteen years in prison and inheriting from an Abbe both his immense wisdom and limitless wealth, Edmond returns to society a transformed man. Through immaculate plotting and deft manipulation of human nature, he vowed to destroy his enemies, by now mostly esteemed and accomplished, by leveraging what they loved most.
Dumas is a master storyteller. Tracking the perspectives of Edmond, his enemies, their multitudes of children and myriad intermarriages would have brooded disaster for most writers, but Dumas spent just enough time with each narrative so that the reader had emotional stakes in the right characters and remembered clues long enough to feel cathartic at their revelations. Despite the length of the book, a result of Dumas’s being paid by the line, even the more superfluous descriptions felt engaging.
Neither is The Count of Monte Cristo just another revenge story. Undertones of religious and moralistic reflections flowed throughout the work, constraining the Count to only pursuing those who had injured him under the title of Providence rather than correcting all wrongs in the name of Justice.
It is easy to see why Conte of Monte Cristo has remained one of the most popular classics. Despite its length, its smoothness of plot, variation of characterization, and consistence with popular morals have made it a role model for countless novelists and playwrights. I personally have seen at least two shows in which the protagonist were wrongfully injured, built a secret wealth over the next decade, and returned incognito for revenge. And they were both really good.A captivating read. A paragon of “the revenge story,” The Count of Monte Cristo follows a framed man, Edmond Dantes, on his journey of vengeance against his four injurers: one greedy for his wallet, one bitter of his success, one covetous of his…
Never EnoughNever Enough, BookWhen Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic--and What We Can Do About It
by Wallace, Jennifer BrehenyBook - 2023Book, 2023
carolwu96's rating:
Added Jan 30, 2024
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I have spent the past decade reflecting on the current state of American elite college admissions. After seven years at “prestigious” schools and another three helping others get admitted, I still marvel at the extremes to which parents would go to guarantee their child a seat inside.
The 2019 Varsity Blues Scandal, in which high profile actors and businesspeople paid a man $25million to inflate their children’s SAT scores and package them as successful athletes for schools such as Penn, Yale, and USC, is an extreme example. But I also know of too many ordinary parents who attempted to bribe teachers, stalked students they perceived as their child’s competitors, or even slandered them to counselors to give their child an advantage.
As students complained of having to don “fake personalities with fake passions” to impress colleges, the parents seem to actually morph into something sinister. To society, they are privileged helicopter parents who occasionally break the law and unveil the ugly truth behind the meritocracy facade; to children, they are “managers,” “agents,” anything but the emotional sanctuary and role models teenagers need in their most formative years.
Author Jennifer Wallace, a Harvard graduate and mother of three, used to struggle with the same urges. However, eventually she realized that it was not credentials or even materialistic success that brought happiness. It was the child’s sense of “mattering” or the feeling of being unconditionally loved, which is easier said than done.
Competition has become more fierce in the ten years since my own college application season. Schools that were once impressed by 10 AP’s now expect 15; extracurriculars have inflated to the level of college or even professional capability. As children continue to be conscripted into the rat race, we should ask ourselves whether any accomplishment can ever be enough.
Thank you @portfoliobooks for the gifted copy.I have spent the past decade reflecting on the current state of American elite college admissions. After seven years at “prestigious” schools and another three helping others get admitted, I still marvel at the extremes to which parents would go to…
YellowfaceYellowface, BookA Novel
by Kuang, R. F.Book - 2023 | First editionBook, 2023. First edition
carolwu96's rating:
Added Jan 13, 2024
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At this point, Yellowface really does not need another synopsis. Another bestseller by Babel author R.F. Kuang, it follows floundering white writer June Hayward after she witnesses the death of her friend and literary superstar Athena Liu and steals the latter’s unpublished manuscript on Chinese laborers in WWI. She edits it, publishes it, becomes an instant phenomenon, but a-white-writer-famous-for-witnessing-her-Chinese-friend’s-death can only go so far without arousing suspicions.
June is obviously an unlikeable protagonist, but reading the story from her perspective is so much fun. You watch her balloon with pride over the manuscript’s success, justify her behavior with the most absurd delusions, then get gaslit almost to unhingedness by those who wanted revenge. Most of the time you’re filled with disgust; sometimes you catch yourself feeling sympathetic.
I kept asking myself two questions throughout the book. First, would the reader in me suspect anything if I were to encounter such a culturally significant manuscript published under a white name? Second, could a white author have pulled off Yellowface?
Perhaps these are the same question. Perhaps what I’m really asking whether it is ok for non-minority authors to write about a group’s uniquely poignant experience.
On one hand, as June herself challenges, if she has done the research and put in the work, why not? Yet I can’t help but feel that I would be more vocal about “mistakes” made by an “outsider” —— I might question the depth of her research and maybe even her motive if the depiction was too unflattering, whereas I might dismiss the same mistake made by an “insider” (a nebulous term and gross oversimplification, I know) as an innocent slip. Talk about hypocrisy.
Regardless, I know that only R.F. Kuang could have pulled off Yellowface. Writing from June’s perspective is just so messy, so risky, that no one without all of her background and skill could have produced such a work.
Such a clever book.
I’m SO excited for Babel.At this point, Yellowface really does not need another synopsis. Another bestseller by Babel author R.F. Kuang, it follows floundering white writer June Hayward after she witnesses the death of her friend and literary superstar Athena Liu and steals…
carolwu96's rating:
Added Jan 01, 2024
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Bel-Ami, said to be published “at the height of [Maupassant’s] literary power,” is one of the short story writer’s few full-length novels. Although the premise, a social critique on the depravity of the flamboyant upperclass through the social rise of our title character, is fascinating, it’s at times painfully obvious that Maupassant was more suited for shorter works.
Bel-Ami, “handsome friend” in French, is the nickname given to Georges Duroy by the daughter of his first lover, Clotilde. Born humble and wildly ambitious, Bel-Ami leveraged his good looks and natural ability to seduce to gain knowledge, money, and status.
Bel-Ami made four total strikes in the novel, and I was surprised by both the distinctness of each lover and the consistency of his method. He would profess some non-existent long-harbored passion and the lady, whether a free-spirited upstart, talented politician constrained by her gender, dutiful wife, or her teenage daughter, would robotically leap into his arms and confess of undying love for him too. Our Bel-Ami, swelling with some combination of self-confidence, knowledge, wealth, and status, would then lift his gaze to a bigger prize, as ready to discard the now-old lover as he would toss a pin.
While the book was mostly engaging, there were lags during which Maupassant seemed uncertain of the direction in which it was headed. It was also filled with his characteristic twists, but although they were exciting in short stories in which the reader would more readily excuse plot holes and character oversimplification, they could easily topple the longer ones. Don’t get me wrong——the story is worth the read——but even Maupassant’s heyday novel does not surpass his works as a short story writer.
For more reviews, visit me on Instagram @ RandomStuffIReadBel-Ami, said to be published “at the height of [Maupassant’s] literary power,” is one of the short story writer’s few full-length novels. Although the premise, a social critique on the depravity of the flamboyant upperclass through the social rise…
A Parisian Affair and Other StoriesA Parisian Affair and Other Stories, Book
by Maupassant, Guy deBook - 2004Book, 2004
carolwu96's rating:
Added Jan 01, 2024
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I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of short stories by Maupassant, and not just because he was Flaubert’s protégé. Like Flaubert, Maupassant commented on socioeconomic inequalities and created controversial female characters, but I relished above all his sarcasm and imagination.
The only story by Maupassant with which I had been acquainted before this book was The Necklace, in which (spoiler alert!) a woman spent years scrubbing floors to replace a lost necklace she had borrowed from her friend, only to learn it was a fake. Endings with twists were typical from Maupassant —— while they were often predictable from the breadcrumbs tossed along the way, the reader would still feel the thrill of seeing her guesses come true.
My favorites from this collection are Boule de Suif and Mother Sauvage. Boule de Suif, arguably his masterpiece, criticizes human hypocrisy and the mind’s ability to self-justify when a group of travelers were prevented from leaving unless the officer-in-command could sleep with a prostitute in their midst. The story was perfectly symmetrical, starting with Elizabeth (the prostitute and title character) sharing her food with her ravenous fellow travelers one dawn, and ending with them refusing to share with her as their carriage disappeared into the night. It could not have done a better job highlighting their selfishness, but also left the reader wondering whether Elizabeth herself would have been any different had she been in their position.
In Mother Sauvage, the eponymous character lived with harmony with enemy soldiers while awaiting news of her conscripted son. As a mother and a civilian who did not stand to profit from the war, she was sympathetic to both the soldiers and their mothers. Until she heard that her son had died in combat.
Although Mother Sauvage was also about human hypocrisy, the reader could not but feel her agony. It was also the perfect example of the way large-scale conflicts, started by the rich and powerful, would eventually whisk ordinary people into their whirlpool and inundate them with bone-deep hatred for generations to come.
For more reviews, visit me on Instagram @ RandomStuffIReadI thoroughly enjoyed this collection of short stories by Maupassant, and not just because he was Flaubert’s protégé. Like Flaubert, Maupassant commented on socioeconomic inequalities and created controversial female characters, but I relished above…
carolwu96's rating:
Added Dec 03, 2023
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I had seen the movie so many times that it was hard to not play the corresponding scenes in my head when listening to the audiobook. It’s a beloved classic and the book should not have been able to outshine it (🤣), but somehow, it did.
The plot follows the Torrence family, sole winter caretakers of The Overlook, a haunted hotel. The five-year-old son, Danny, has a special gift (“the shining”), which allows him to be particularly perceptive about other humans’ (and forces’) thoughts, communicate with other strong shiners, and even see flickers of the future.
However, Danny is not to be the only one that shines at the Overlook that winter: as Jack, his father and a weak shiner who does not understand his gift, becomes unhinged under the hotel’s insidious whispers, Danny realizes that the Overlook might want them to stay permanently, and not alive.
For me, the biggest difference between the book and the movie is the parents’ backstories, especially that of Jack. Because the film’s poster touted a crazed Jack shoving his face through an axed door, I went into the movie suspicious of him from the beginning, even when he was all smiles and Wendy, his wife, could not yet be mistaken for Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.”
The book, however, traces their love story and shows the reader different aspects of Jack: his frustrations as an once modestly successful writer, his supportiveness as a husband and tenderness as a father, his inherited violence and beleaguering alcoholism… Jack of the book is so much more complex, and despite all the gore and superpowers, at the end of the day, I am most haunted by strength of his love for Danny, even at the very end.
Ironically, the quote that best encapsulates The Shining is one from @nyrb ‘s introduction to Stoner. I had disagreed with its application to Stoner, but it is perfect for The Shining as a work all about “love, the many forms love takes, and all the forces that oppose it.”
The Overlook represents the forces of evil, but it is no opponent against the intelligent and self-sacrificial love of our main characters.I had seen the movie so many times that it was hard to not play the corresponding scenes in my head when listening to the audiobook. It’s a beloved classic and the book should not have been able to outshine it (🤣), but somehow, it did.
The…
carolwu96's rating:
Added Nov 23, 2023
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Boldly imaginative, meticulously researched, and movingly written, Helen of Troy is both an imagination of the Spartan queen’s earthly life had she really existed and an examination of her varying historical portrayals.
Those who grew up in the West should be familiar with Helen by now——the golden daughter of Zeus and the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen unprecedentedly united the Greek towns in their sack of Troy when she (willingly or not) left her husband, King Menelaus, for Trojan prince Paris. Now she is known as “the face that launched a thousand ships,” forever marveled for her great and terrible beauty and her role in the Trojan War.
But Helen had not always been a beautiful adulteress.
The historical Helen of Sparta would have made an independently wealthy and powerful queen, her husband’s equal rather than a mere escort of ornament. In her homeland, Helen was worshipped as a divine role model and protector of teenage girls. In Egypt, she was a “decorous, seemly wife.” At times she was even a water spirit, divinely descended from the Ocean itself.
Helen’s artistic portrayals also varied. Sometimes she was a cunning manipulator, sometimes a reluctant scapegoat, sometimes an unprincipled renegade. Her multifacetedness makes her a flawed human and a complex goddess, a shrouded symbol of eternal longing, and an open canvas on which historians, commentators, and artists continue to paint their signatures.
Eventually (and partly due to myriad Christian leaders’ inability to accept her female complexity), Helen became more famous for her danger (to men) and betrayal (of men) than her feminine divinity and protectiveness. Now she is known as Helen of Troy rather than of Sparta, the change in suffix testifying to the erosion of her independence and godliness. This book has successfully peeled back some of that miasma to give modern readers a glimpse of Helen’s divine light.Boldly imaginative, meticulously researched, and movingly written, Helen of Troy is both an imagination of the Spartan queen’s earthly life had she really existed and an examination of her varying historical portrayals.
Those who grew up in…
FlawlessFlawless, eBookLessons in Looks and Culture From the K-beauty Capital
by Hu, EliseeBook - 2023eBook, 2023
carolwu96's rating:
Added Nov 06, 2023
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Having struggled with skin problems most my life, I was once a devotee of the 10-step K-beauty skincare routine. Before Sephora inducted K-beauty brands, my dad would bring back products from Asia, and I would sit on the living room floor in front of the Christmas tree, relishing in unwrapping the potential panacea to my latest predicaments.
While I no longer use K-beauty, its ascension as a major global player continues to be captivating——what made this small country such a leader in everything beauty-related, and will we in North America also fall prey to their notoriously stringent beauty standards? For those who don’t know, Korea is leading in its normalization of cosmetic procedures. A quick search on Youtube will also reveal female street interviewees explaining the professional and social consequences of refusing to adhere to social aesthetics.
In her investigative memoir, Flawless, author Elise Hu theorizes K-beauty to be the offspring of a multitude of factors: “a vestigial Confucian emphasis on societal harmony” (and conformity), “a hyper-modernity that fuels technologies of self-improvement”, “the aspirational Korean dream of ‘making it’ by getting rich” and, due to historical and economic reasons, the conflation between beauty and ethics. If the rejection of beauty standards means jeopardizing relationships and careers, an individual has very little incentive to not beautify herself.
Yes, herself. Although Korean men are now also feeling the pressure and trying to emulate the top oppa’s, women are still disproportionally surveilled by society’s unrelenting gaze. Hu also discusses “Escape the Corset,” a feminist movement to reject beauty standards, as well as the conflict that can happen between cis-feminist and trans-women who intentionally adhere to these standards to appear more “feminine,” a fascinating angle I had never considered before.
My favorite part of the book is Hu’s half-insider, half-outsider POV. As an Asian woman in Korea, she was often subject to the aesthetic gaze. Yet her American status also excused her many “failures” to comply with its rules, a privilege not afforded to locals.
Living in the States, I am similarly privileged in no longer having to adhere to (the admittedly less stringent/ consequential) Chinese standards. But years of indoctrination are slow to dissipate: while I often have a snarky rejoinder when my mom criticizes my looks, I also follow routines that purportedly thin legs into the “chopsticks-like” shape popular in both China and Korea.
This paradox must be common among half-outsiders. Explaining the impact a mere four years Korea exerted on her and her daughters, Hu concludes that all such indoctrination requires is for someone to “be born and pay attention.” Unfortunately, women are too often taught to pay attention to society’s standards, which makes the Escape the Corset partakers even more impressive, as they have not only rebuffed the shackles of society, but also those in their minds.
Thank you @elisewho for the gifted signed copy. Follow @RandomStuffIRead on Instagram for more book reviews.Having struggled with skin problems most my life, I was once a devotee of the 10-step K-beauty skincare routine. Before Sephora inducted K-beauty brands, my dad would bring back products from Asia, and I would sit on the living room floor in front…
Diary of A Tuscan BookshopDiary of A Tuscan Bookshop, BookA Memoir
by Donati, AlbaBook - 2023 | First Scribner trade paperback editionBook, 2023. First Scribner trade paperback edition
carolwu96's rating:
Added Oct 24, 2023
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As the home province of Michelangelo, Tuscany holds a special place in my heart. I had physically visited its capital, Florence, before COVID, and spiritually returned via works such as The Agony and The Ecstasy, Irving Stone’s biographical fiction of a masterpiece on the painter and sculptor.
But my knowledge of Tuscany had been limited to its art and the Carrara marble. Lucignana, the tiny town from which the author recorded the daily struggles and victories of her bookstore during COVID, was not on my radar.
That was before I read Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop.
Quitting her position as a book publicist in Florence, poet Alba Donati returned to her hometown to build a bookstore amongst its rolling hills. One fire, two fundraisers, and a litany of COVID shutdowns later, the bookshop is still thriving with its flower garden and visitors from far and near.
One would expect this book to be in the veins of The Diary of A Bookseller. But for a book with such an idyllic setting and brightly painted cover, Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop contains a surprising amount of death and trauma.
At sixty, Donati was candid with the world about her scars. Growing up with a manipulative mother, a distant half-brother, and the tale of the father who had abandoned them all made Donati thirsty for the fabled pristineness of the complete family. Therefore, despite perceiving everyone’s selfishness, she remained loyal to her manipulators and rejoiced at her parents’ eventual reconciliation, still striving to rewrite her childhood decades after.
There were also a lot of deaths for such a short book, and Donati’s matter-of-fact tone made me question my own decisions. I had enrolled in an accounting class and taken on a heavier course-load than I would have otherwise liked, believing that it would be helpful in the long run. But then I asked myself whether I would retain this knowledge in a year and whether I would regret taking this class were I to drop dead tomorrow.
Needless to say, I’m no longer in the class.
Thanks @scribnerbooks for the gifted copy.As the home province of Michelangelo, Tuscany holds a special place in my heart. I had physically visited its capital, Florence, before COVID, and spiritually returned via works such as The Agony and The Ecstasy, Irving Stone’s biographical fiction…
carolwu96's rating:
Added Sep 23, 2023
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To prove himself one of those ordinary men without scruples about breaking the law to better the world, haughty and intelligent Raskolnikov planned and executed the murder of a pawnbroker and supposed “social parasite.” Unfortunately, Raskolnikov might have overestimated his magnificence, for his mind quickly unraveled into incessant waves of delirium and turmoil while awaiting his punishment.
At almost 500 pages, Crime and Punishment is a complex but tight-woven story of psychology, religion, and philosophy. Much of the latter two must have flown right over my head thanks to my limited knowledge of philosophy and Russian history, but at least the snippets on existentialism, nihilism, and social utilitarianism were accessible.
Dostoyevsky maintained complete mastery over the language throughout the novel. His words, as forceful as torrents after the rain, urged my eyes to scan the lines so fast that words eventually became muddled in a blur of paced panic. Although it was still summer and there was no impending doom on my back, at times I felt my head spin and spirit succumb to the same craze that ruled Raskolnikov as we both sparred with waves of wanton rage and urges of self-destruction.
I also found C&P interesting in its depiction of female characters. Dostoyevsky displayed a surprisingly incisive understanding of female sacrifice from the beginning, starting the novel with a daughter who became a prostitute to support her family and a sister who was engaged to a wealthy man to provide for her brother. The female characters were also multifaceted, some timid, some determined, some broken, and many growing over the course of the novel.
Yet despite the diversity, somehow the major female characters still ended up making sacrifices for men. The two who conspicuously did not, the pawnbroker (who worked for herself) and her sister (who worked for the pawnbroker), were obliterated in the first chapter. The story took place during a time of changing perceptions of women; perhaps Dostoyevsky himself was also caught between ideologies when writing C&P.To prove himself one of those ordinary men without scruples about breaking the law to better the world, haughty and intelligent Raskolnikov planned and executed the murder of a pawnbroker and supposed “social parasite.” Unfortunately, Raskolnikov…
carolwu96's rating:
Added Aug 23, 2023
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William Stoner. Son of farmers, professor of English, husband of Edith, father of Grace.
At first glance, Stoner is a failure. He had abandoned his family’s land only to become a mediocre scholar, cheated on his wife with a student, and watched as his daughter drowned in alcoholism.
However, Stoner is also a hero amidst characters who buckled beneath society’s pressures.
One manifestation of such influences is the characters’ intergenerationally repeating destinies. Both Edith’s paternal grandfather and her father went bankrupt due to rash investments. Both Edith and her mother felt disillusioned in marriage. Even Stoner, who had thought himself escaped from his parents’ long toil on their arid farm, followed in the footsteps of his other father figure——the professor who had offered him a career in academia——and became just as withdrawn and eccentric.
Even Stoner’s prized daughter, Grace, surrendered to life’s seemingly overwhelming predeterminations, as reflected in her favorite phrase, “it doesn’t matter.” When Edith emotionally manipulated her to stay home for college, Grace decided that her desire to leave did not matter. When she became pregnant, the identity of the father did not matter. Whether she was to marry her child’s father also did not matter. Once an intelligent child, Grace had crumbled under her mother’s coercion and her father’s inaction, pretending indifference as a self-protection mechanism in her helplessness.
It is easy to accuse Edith for causing Grace’s tragedy, but the former had undergone something similar herself. Having never loved Stoner, Edith married him only because she knew marriage was inevitable. She never actively prevented him from resisting social pressures, but whenever he lost, she was there to remind him that none of his attempts, not his attempt to expel his boss’s favorite student to protect academic integrity, nor his true love for Katherine, ever mattered.
Thus Stoner’s steadfast resistance amidst everyone else’s succumbence is precisely the root of his heroism. Although his efforts made little difference, as the student was not expelled and he and Katherine were forced to part forever, he kept rebelling for the rest of his life, making him, lonely and misunderstood as he was, a true, albeit unrecognized, hero.
For more reviews, visit me on Instagram @ RandomStuffIReadWilliam Stoner. Son of farmers, professor of English, husband of Edith, father of Grace.
At first glance, Stoner is a failure. He had abandoned his family’s land only to become a mediocre scholar, cheated on his wife with a student, and watched…
Swipe up for More!Swipe up for More!, BookInside the Unfiltered Lives of Influencers
by McNeal, StephanieBook - 2023Book, 2023
carolwu96's rating:
Added Aug 07, 2023
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Influencing is fast becoming Gen Z’s most desired job and it is easy to see why. Flexible schedules, internet fame, lucrative income while working on one’s passion? Yes please!
But beyond the apartment tours and girls talks we get from our favorite influencers (hello @best.dressed and @essssssie ), what are their lives really like? Author Stephanie McNeal interviewed three influencers for a glimpse into life behind the glam.
The book does include juicy information on prices and scandals, but I found most fascinating its discussions on the lack of protection for children of parent influencers and the influencers’ shared desire for independence.
One of those interviewed is mommy influencer @birdalamode , who has found her children increasingly unwilling to cooperate for photos and posts as they matured. She now offers money as incentive, but others might not be so lenient. Although there are currently laws on child actors, due to the sacred privacy of the home and many influencers’ ambiguous boundary between work and life, policymakers are still trying to find adequate yet non-intrusive solutions.
On the other hand, influencers’ desire to diversify revenue streams and become independent from any given platform is only too intuitive. Just as @wderesiewicz notes in The Death of The Artist, while users are the ones to create, it is the platforms who eventually harvest the bulk of the profits.
The distribution and power imbalance between the creator and the platform, aggravated by the latter’s often apparently arbitrary algorithms, has pushed influencers to diversify. Many I follow are either selling merch or straight up creating their own brands as a safeguard both against the platforms and the ever-looming pressure to create.
If one day my favorite influencers stop uploading content, I hope it is because they have found financial freedom and other creative outlets. Unfortunately, many seem to have burnt out, dissipating like ashes into the night and leaving us still mesmerized by the everlasting evidence of their ephemeral stardoms.Influencing is fast becoming Gen Z’s most desired job and it is easy to see why. Flexible schedules, internet fame, lucrative income while working on one’s passion? Yes please!
But beyond the apartment tours and girls talks we get from our…
Bully MarketBully Market, BookMy Story of Money and Misogyny at Goldman Sachs
by Higgins, Jamie FioreBook - 2022 | First Simon & Schuster hardcover editionBook, 2022. First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition
carolwu96's rating:
Added Jul 22, 2023
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Despite only having acquaintances at investment banks, I was not surprised by the horrors exposed in Higgins’s professional memoir on her 18 years at Goldman Sachs.
Sexual labelling of female colleagues, dismissing non-cis-white-male candidates as “diversity hires,” and using high-school bullying mechanisms against minorities——please, who’s surprised that the investment banks (or firms in lucrative industries in general) are just giant fraternities?
As a woman and second-generation immigrant, Higgins became her family’s pride when she landed a coveted position at GS and later began to bag seven-figure compensations. Initially, it was just another venue for her prove her intellect. But as Higgins’s self-worth was increasingly entwined with Goldman’s salary and platform, she became complicit in its discriminatory treatment of female and minority employees.
She said nothing when intelligent female mentees were fired. She smoothed over her colleague’s sexist and racist behaviors. She smiled politely when her supervisor berated the “bad timing” of her gory miscarriage. She remained silent when HR snitched on her for reporting a racist colleague.
Like so many minority midlevels, Higgins had bitten her tongue to keep her job, but when she became involved in one of the inevitable political struggles on her trek to the upper echelons and needed headcount, she no longer had a team.
This book is an exploration of privilege and its many facets, as well as the importance of staying true to one’s values and even the oxymoron of “picking one’s battles” (since only the most privileged actually get to “pick”).
But at the end of the day, what is the individual to do in face of such institutionalized monstrosity? To leave with financial freedom while retaining some of one’s original benevolence is already arguably the best outcome. For those who became part of the machine are not stupid——the secret to capitalism’s continued success is precisely the alignment between the individual’s materialistic desires and the system’s own sustainability. Despite only having acquaintances at investment banks, I was not surprised by the horrors exposed in Higgins’s professional memoir on her 18 years at Goldman Sachs.
Sexual labelling of female colleagues, dismissing non-cis-white-male candidates…
My BookstoreMy Bookstore, BookWriters Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop
Book - 2012Book, 2012
carolwu96's rating:
Added Jul 14, 2023
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My Bookstore comprises 84 love letters from writers to their favorite bookshops. It flaunts a wealth of big names (Ann Patchett, Lisa See, John Grisham) and showcases a variety of creative approaches (poetry, dictionary-entry definition, philosophical musings, prose with the seriousness of a high schooler with an assigned topic, though I suspect the last was achieved without irony).
As the essays had been compiled more than a decade ago, a post-COVID era reader would reasonably suspect the bookstores’ dissolution. I would squint little every time I looked up a name, fearing the crimson “permanently closed” that now stalked every independent bookstore, a virtual sword of Damocles embedded in the innocuous electronic gadget through which we are all reading this post.
Luckily, all of the stores I searched still survive. I was even able to discover my current Boston favorite this way——hello, @brooklinebooksmith .
But 84 essays are simply too many, especially when they get repetitive.
The bookstore in a given essay might be the sole occupant of a three-story building, or it could be tucked away between a grocery store and a laundromat. It could be the Strand or Powell’s, or one whose legacy dissipated as quickly as ink in water. But regardless its location or prosperity, the store always had knowledgeable staff, a “fiercely loyal” community of supporters, and a history of handselling the author’s books (or at least inviting her to host readings there). It pushed sales when no publisher believed in them. It conjured full houses for readings when the author did not even believe in herself.
While a few accounts in this vein could inspire an aspiring writer or amuse an introverted buyer who never approaches bookstore staff for recommendations, tens of the same story are tiresomely repetitive. This book took me a month and two books in between to finish, and while I do not regret borrowing it, it dragged on for so long and I felt so obliged to finish that it might have dampened, rather than fueled, my desire to read this summer.My Bookstore comprises 84 love letters from writers to their favorite bookshops. It flaunts a wealth of big names (Ann Patchett, Lisa See, John Grisham) and showcases a variety of creative approaches (poetry, dictionary-entry definition,…
carolwu96's rating:
Added Jun 24, 2023
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Despite its many imperfections, Susie Luo’s Paper Names is probably the closest book so far to mirror my own Chinese (North) American experience.
The story follows the perspectives of a Chinese American father-daughter pair. Tony, previously a professor at a prestigious Chinese university, became a doorman after immigrating to the US as his credentials were not recognized here. Simultaneously proud of his hard work and insecure about his foreignness, he attempted to raise Tammy, his daughter, the “traditional” way, with authority, reticence, and occasional violence.
He reminds me of many immigrant fathers I know, abstractly understanding that his child is growing up in another culture yet still demanding the same filial piety afforded to traditional Chinese parents. Such oscillating feelings caused conflict in his relationship with Tammy, who is torn between respect for his toils and frustration at his attempts to control her.
Now, as a 1.5 generation immigrant, I could not identify more with Tammy. From being the only English speaker in the family to being pressed to assimilate into “the white world,” from going into biglaw to feeling foreign to its social code, we can find the American Dream just as intangible as it was for our parents, despite our local pedigrees.
One perspective missing from the narrative is that of Tammy’s mother. At a virtual panel, the author confessed her prior discomfort at feeling responsible for her mom’s self-worth, and I empathize.
Many first-gen immigrant moms, including mine, are homemakers who believe they need their children’s successes to show for their labors.
For years I resented the way these women have allowed their entire identities to be devoured by their children’s accomplishments, but now I finally realize that this is the result of myriad influences and would be unfair to blame on any one group. The obsession with credentials, the misleading achievability of the American Dream, and the Chinese parents’ self-sacrificial attitudes can strengthen familial bonds, but they can also stifle the children’s own dreams and identities.Despite its many imperfections, Susie Luo’s Paper Names is probably the closest book so far to mirror my own Chinese (North) American experience.
The story follows the perspectives of a Chinese American father-daughter pair. Tony, previously a…
carolwu96's rating:
Added Jun 19, 2023
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When young Alessandra marries learned Cristoforo, she imagines intellectual exchanges before bed, mastership over her household, and the freedom of a matron in Renaissance Florence.
Instead, she finds both her public and personal lives in turmoil as Savonarola forecloses women from civic engagement and her husband confesses homosexual lust for her brother.
All of a sudden, Alessandra is no longer the artistic daughter of the newly rich. All of a sudden, all she has is a shell of a marriage and her own forbidden passion for a painter.
Before reading the book, I had assumed that, similar to the setup in Tracy Chevalier’s The Girl with a Pearl Earring, Alessandra would be the sitter of the titled painting and lover of the artist, which would make her the model for Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. However, the book quickly dispelled any such misconception, as Alessandra’s lover was revealed to be someone else.
So why name it The Birth of Venus?
The author has packed much into the book’s four hundred pages, from the political and religious struggles among the Catholic church, Savonarola, the Signoria, and the Medici, to society’s oppression of women and queer people.
However, the strongest overarching plot is Alessandra’s own growth as a woman and artist. Initially rash and idealistic, she becomes more lenient with time, and not for society’s peace of mind but for her own.
She also never gives up on art —— from grinding colors out of culinary leftovers to painting her own chapel, she achieves a level of artistry that, in spite of its mediocrity amongst the virtuosos of her time, satisfied her own ambitions.
Therefore, defying my assumptions, The Birth of Venus isn’t about a woman who sat for Botticelli. It is about a woman who, despite the turbulent waves of her time and the fragility of her position among them, manages to stand tall and graceful, her long hair unfurling in the wind.
Alessandra is not the sitter for Venus.
She is Venus.When young Alessandra marries learned Cristoforo, she imagines intellectual exchanges before bed, mastership over her household, and the freedom of a matron in Renaissance Florence.
Instead, she finds both her public and personal lives in…
carolwu96's rating:
Added May 14, 2023
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The Red and The Black follows young, gorgeous, brilliant but bashful Julien Sorel on his social ascension. Calculating yet impulsive, Julien is haunted by his all-eclipsing social ambition as well as insecurity about his low birth, both of which frequently resurface as he becomes romantically involved with first the wife of his first employer and then the daughter of his second.
Julien is not your stereotypical Don Juan — in fact, he berates himself for betraying the confidence of his employers. But the thirsts for love and power are so intertwined that he confuses genuine love and the thrill of conquer. When Madame de Rênal sobs in his arms, he disembodies from all passion to muse over his power over her husband. When Mathilde de La Mole struggles against her infatuation with him, he withholds all warmth lest she gains the upper hand. Yet in both cases, at the time he genuinely believes he is in love.
But is that love, or only the coping mechanism of a man who subconsciously recognizes the unfeasibility of his ambitions and emotionally conquers high society through seducing its most admired ladies?
Interestingly, Julien is not the only character with a twisted view of love due to powerlessness. Mathilde de La Mole, the daughter of a Marquis and the darling of aristocratic society, becomes enamored with Julien for his potentials both as a social leader and a personal master. Knowing that a woman cannot advance her own social position in that society, Mathilde finds in Julien a vessel to fulfill her ambitions. However, this desire is also mixed with one to be personally dominated, which is the reason she becomes obsessed when he displays indifference and disgusted when he shows emotional vulnerability.
The society in The Red and The Black is one of uncertainty and turbulence, creating characters who, under Stendhal’s intimate pen, are full of conflicting desires for love, success, and self-destruction. The title attempts to draw contrast between the red and the black as two distinct ways of life; yet to me, they are so intertwined that all we have is a single river of ink and blood.
For more reviews, visit me on Instagram @ RandomStuffIReadThe Red and The Black follows young, gorgeous, brilliant but bashful Julien Sorel on his social ascension. Calculating yet impulsive, Julien is haunted by his all-eclipsing social ambition as well as insecurity about his low birth, both of which…
The Women of TroyThe Women of Troy, BookA Novel
by Barker, PatBook - 2021 | First editionBook, 2021. First edition
Added Apr 15, 2023
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Sequel to the Booker Prize-winning The Silence of the Girls and a retelling of Euripides’s play of the same name, The Women of Troy highlights women’s cleverness and courage in achieving desired effects despite involuntary voicelessness.
From the fall of Troy till the Greeks’ departure home, the book tracks the struggles of three narrators, Beiseis (the subject of the dispute that had incited Achilles’s wrath at the beginning of The Iliad), Pyrrhus (son of Achilles, who struggles with living under his late father’s shadow), and Calchas (a priest of Apollo, who nominally interprets divine will but is more preoccupied with currying earthly favors).
Calchas’s narrative felt superfluous until I realized that he was the male counterpart to Cassandra, the prophetic priestess cursed with universal disbelief for rejecting Apollo’s sexual advances. While most women cope with their losses in silence, Cassandra has always been vocal about her prophecies. Since people cannot directly believe her, she gradually learns to wield invisible power through influencing Calchas. Thus, despite her divinely enfettered silence, Cassandra manages to regain some individuality through manipulation.
The same happens on a group level. The one time the Trojan women break their silence occurs in the middle of the book, when they sing to cover the screams of Marie as she gives birth to Trojan’s only surviving boy. This scene occurs after a conflict over a Trojan girl’s forbidden burial of Priam, for which the Greeks had not even considered female suspects as they did not believe women to have the courage to disobey them. Thus it is especially ironic and empowering to see such a variety of women —— martyrs, seductresses, matrons —— uniting and exploiting the Greeks’ very underestimation of femininity to their advantage. While the women of Troy might have appeared to simply inherit the feminine silence in The Silence of the Girls, they are now using it as the facade of a quiet revolution.
Thanks @doubleday for the gifted copy. Sequel to the Booker Prize-winning The Silence of the Girls and a retelling of Euripides’s play of the same name, The Women of Troy highlights women’s cleverness and courage in achieving desired effects despite involuntary voicelessness.
From…
The Left BehindThe Left Behind, BookDecline and Rage in Rural America
by Wuthnow, RobertBook - 2018Book, 2018
carolwu96's rating:
Added Apr 02, 2023
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The book is surprisingly short for a topic as complex as the struggles of rural America, but it does touch upon a compendium of factors including population decline, the disappearance of jobs, drug abuse, and teen pregnancy, all of which contribute to the frustration and helplessness of isolated communities as their way of life becomes threatened and even ridiculed. Combined with an overwhelmingly white demographic and a general distrust of Washington, we have the secret sauce to burgeoning anti-immigrant sentiments and, in 2016, the election of Trump.
Much of the above is already familiar to urban Democrats concerned with America’s continued polarization, but Wuthnow also provides nuances that are less readily apparent.
🍊 The government’s definitions of rural and urban can be inconsistent, making simple chronological comparisons of voting results misleading.
🍊 Just as some communities dwindle and disappear, others near the highway or with cultural attractions are experiencing renaissances.
🍊 Just because someone voted for Trump does not mean they wholeheartedly believe his rhetoric: many recognized that he was just as corrupted as the rest of Washington.
This semester, I took a course outside of the law school to study the history of witchcraft and the witch trials. One would be surprised by the similarities between small communities then and now.
At the risk of overgeneralization, witchhunting frenzies were often triggered by community-destabilizing changes such as the rise of new religions, economic decline, and natural disasters. Consistent in human nature is our tendency to persecute others to regain the illusion of control, whether they be witches, immigrants, or hillbillies.
We might know more about the world than those in 1625 Würzburg or 1692 Salem, but our identification with our communities and indignation when (we think) they become threatened continue to fuel our conflicts today.The book is surprisingly short for a topic as complex as the struggles of rural America, but it does touch upon a compendium of factors including population decline, the disappearance of jobs, drug abuse, and teen pregnancy, all of which contribute…
CultishCultish, BookThe Language of Fanaticism
by Montell, AmandaBook - 2021 | First editionBook, 2021. First edition
carolwu96's rating:
Added Mar 20, 2023
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For many, cults occupy an area akin to urban legends. Their nominal similarity to your everyday religion gives them a facade of ubiquity, yet occasional outbursts of calamities enshroud them in a mysterious horror.
I already knew of some of the common recruiting tactics used by cults before reading the book: lovebombing, secret jokes and vernaculars, us-versus-them rhetorics and, as the author astutely observes, cliches such as “everything happens for a reason” which, the moment they are uttered, end all discussions.
In comparison to the characteristics of cultish language, I found more interesting the author’s explanation for modern society’s (especially America’s) obsession with cults, which she attributes to our current atmosphere of “broader existential questioning.” Humans innately feel safer in groups, and Americans have a particular proclivity for cults due to both spiritual secularization and the lack of institutional social support such as universal healthcare, aggravating feelings of precariousness and loneliness and making people more vulnerable to the beautiful illusion of becoming part of something greater.
Thus cults are now no longer limited to religious organizations. Instead, they include everything from MLM’s such as Amway to brands including SoulCycle and Lululemon. While some fashion improvidence hurts no one but the environment, MLM’s could destroy relationships and deplete lives’ savings.
It might be easy to dismiss those who fall prey to cults as gullible or weak, but as the author notes, discernment is often the result of privileges such as higher education and relative financial and social security.
The opening of The Great Gatsby might have been quoted to cliche, but if there is ever a situation in which we should not criticize others who do not have the same advantages as us, this is it.For many, cults occupy an area akin to urban legends. Their nominal similarity to your everyday religion gives them a facade of ubiquity, yet occasional outbursts of calamities enshroud them in a mysterious horror.
I already knew of some of the…
The Invisible ManThe Invisible Man, BookA Grotesque Romance
by Wells, H. G.Book - 2002 | Modern Library pbk. editionBook, 2002. Modern Library pbk. edition
carolwu96's rating:
Added Feb 26, 2023
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If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
Such was the question I had often asked myself when I was younger. Superhuman speed could become obsolete with new technologies; reading minds would probably bring more indignation than contentment. Flying was too conspicuous; telekinesis seemed helpful only for getting snacks and work in construction. Invisibility seemed the most practical.
As I aged, however, my imagination became more nuanced. Could I be invisible whenever I wanted, would things I hold become invisible too or, like King Midas’s golden touch, would the superpower become a curse? We might never know.
But what we do know is that Griffin from The Invisible Man did not ask himself these questions before chugging his mighty potion. Once a promising scientist, he was now an invisible coatrack for visible clothes, dooming him to either complete nudity or ludicrous disguises with fake noses and bandages.
Unfortunately, our society has never been a friendly place for the unfathomed, not to mention the unfathomable. When we think of invisibility, we imagine wealth garnered, rent unpaid, and pranks played. We do not anticipate homelessness, dog bites, and having nowhere to spend that money.
As time went on, Griffin’s optimism was drained along with his morality. From lackluster but genuine guilt over indirectly causing his father’s death, he fell to threatening a man into servitude before eventually attempting to start a “reign of terror” as its despot.
I doubt the scheme would have worked because, despite his invisibility, Griffin was only one man and could terrorize only so many at a time. Yet if he were to distribute the potion, then others would also obtain the exact same power, rendering his advantage no longer unique. Therefore, even if Griffin had not paid dearly for his power at the end of the book, he would have never succeeded, further testifying to the depth of the delirium into which he eventually descended.
In short, if you ever get your hands on an invisibility potion, don’t make Griffin’s mistake.If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
Such was the question I had often asked myself when I was younger. Superhuman speed could become obsolete with new technologies; reading minds would probably bring more indignation than…
carolwu96's rating:
Added Jan 28, 2023
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Since the book is a diary, I thought it would be fun to write my review in the same format!
2023/1/1
Today I started Shaun Bythell’s Confessions of a Bookseller, the second installment after his Diary of a Bookseller, which I had read as my first book of 2022. If I make reading his work as my first book of the year a tradition, I will be covered for at least the next two years since I still have yet to read his Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops and the newly released Remainders of the Day. An extraordinary amount of internal monologue this man must have, since he is also running a Facebook page for his daily snarks and musings.
2023/1/2
Found a dead bug in the margins on page 60 today. Interesting how it would have disintegrated had it died elsewhere but, since the book is a library loan, it will now be noted by countless readers to come. Not unlike the author’s thoughts, which are just as insignificant and would have been discarded by even himself, now objects of interest to strangers all over the world.
2023/1/4
Look at the author describing this taciturn, borderline-rude customer: “He is, I imagine, an inveterate reader who has indulged his passion for reading at the expense of learning rudimentary social skills. I like him enormously.”
I like him too.
2023/1/6
Shaun has gone into more detail about his personal life in this book than previously, especially about his commitment issues and the end of his marriage. I wonder if visitors ever confess having read these entries and how he feels at being approached by strangers who know so much about him.
2023/1/7
Came down with some sort of cold / allergy today so spent the day tucked in on the couch and reading and nibbling on snacks and randomly sucking in air because they were so spicy.
This book has been perfect for the holiday season. It reminds me of my love for bookshops, does not require the quietness inevitably deprived from being surrounded by a festive family, and takes me somewhere both as remote as Scotland and as intimate as a fellow book lover’s mind.Since the book is a diary, I thought it would be fun to write my review in the same format!
2023/1/1
Today I started Shaun Bythell’s Confessions of a Bookseller, the second installment after his Diary of a Bookseller, which I had read as my…
When McKinsey Comes to TownWhen McKinsey Comes to Town, BookThe Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm
by Bogdanich, WaltBook - 2022 | First editionBook, 2022. First edition
carolwu96's rating:
Added Jan 13, 2023
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Many people I know have at least considered beginning their professional career in management consulting, and of the big names in the industry, none is more prestigious than McKinsey.
The authors, however, suggest that rather than all value-driven as they claim, McKinsey has engaged in suspicious behaviors such as contributing to the disappearance of the American middle class, working with regulatory agencies without revealing potential conflicts of interest, and providing business expertise to authoritarian governments.
Domestically, McKinsey ingratiated itself with clients by recommending cost-cuts through mass layoffs and decreased equipment maintenance. While these tactics boosted profits and stock prices in the short term, clients subsequently suffered from fatally electrocuted workers, crashed roller coasters, and large court settlements.
Internationally, McKinsey was entrusted with restructuring governmental healthcare systems and saving national economies. While they did not always achieve the desired results (sometimes even having been accused of destroying the existing infrastructure), they did often walk away with large remunerations, future contracts, and deepened personal connections with governmental officers and private executives.
I noticed some curious similarities between McKinsey and Jones Day, one of America’s most powerful law firms, from Servants of the Damned two posts ago. Not only did the two share clients such as Purdue Pharma and the Catholic Church, they also followed similar doctrines, refusing to “judge the client’s values” and championing the latter’s causes despite predicable social consequences.
And it’s not just McKinsey and Jones Day. As McKinsey argues, if they don’t take on a project, BCG will. The elite servants in general seem to have long passed the daily squabbles of nationality and ideology that still preoccupy most of the world; to them, the dollar sign simply reigns as the ultimate king.
Thank you @doubledaybooks for the gifted copy.Many people I know have at least considered beginning their professional career in management consulting, and of the big names in the industry, none is more prestigious than McKinsey.
The authors, however, suggest that rather than all…
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