≡ Download The Modern Man A philosophical divagation about the evil banality of daily acts Cristiane Serruya 9781489524553 Books

The Modern Man A philosophical divagation about the evil banality of daily acts Cristiane Serruya 9781489524553 Books

Download As PDF : The Modern Man A philosophical divagation about the evil banality of daily acts Cristiane Serruya 9781489524553 Books

The Modern Man A philosophical divagation about the evil banality of daily acts Cristiane Serruya 9781489524553 Books

We see the modern man and all his modern problems. He struggles today just as ardently as he did in 1988 when this paper was written, just as he did since the beginning of his existence. The only thing that's changed are tools. Man's struggles with himself and his place in the world will always be the same, regardless of the point in time.
The author provides no solutions for man's dilemma, probably because there isn't one or the challenge is too grand to tackle. Man is portrayed as a feeble creature riddled with self doubt and oozing with misguided hope. Whatever man's troubles are, it seems that we are still in control of our own lives. If we created the problems we face today, does it not make sense that we can be the ones to clean up the mess?
All in all it was a provocative read that will ignite many intriguing conversations!


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The Modern Man A philosophical divagation about the evil banality of daily acts Cristiane Serruya 9781489524553 Books Reviews

I wanted to give this book a second read before I wrote a review on it, in order to do it justice. The English-language part of it is, in fact, only 24-pages long, yet there are a lot of thoughts crammed into that small space.

I first read this on the 7th April (shame it won't let me show that, too!) and reread it again last night. On a second reading, my beginning thoughts were the same - the man seems depressed as much as he is trapped. But as you move through, you see how much of it is of his own doing, he has forged his own trap and thinks in a moment to escape, but with thoughts and dreams that are too great to enable him to escape. It reflects the modern world that I often see precisely people walking around like worker ants, performing the chores for the leader of the colony without a thought or hope of there ever being any more to life than that. They have no thoughts or cares outside of their own little bubble and the greater world is just something that others dream of.

This could really be taken from a small work into something much bigger, a reflection of life as many know it with no happy ending. It would be interesting to see that! It may even be able to compete with the inspiration Hannah Arendt herself (who I will now look to go out and read!).
I do love a well written philosophical book, and one of those that affected me the most over many years is Bruce Lee's Tao of Jeet Kune Do.

I am an experienced martial arts teacher, but when that book was written, it was ahead of its time. Bruce Lee was ahead of his time. Arguably now, only some of his concepts are being truly understood. I continue to wrestle with them myself.

The next thing to say is that I am a fan of Cristiane Serruya's works, without necessarily being a fan of 'hot romances'.

But her TRUST trilogy was, and is, a revelation.

So where does The Modern Man stack up? Written by the author when aged just 18, it shows a great maturity and, in relation to Bruce Lee - someone else who was ahead of her time.

At times, the book seems dream-like, almost stuck between the haze of half-sleep whilst dealing with the brutality of life. Some may even view this as a pro-feminist text. It may well be, but that's not how I took it.

It is a complex narrative, but beautifully written, and every single line engages you. It is a book worthy of many, many re-reads. In The Tao of Jeet Kune Do, many sentences deserve multiple re-reads.

I have read other philosophy books, but few as good as the one I mentioned. Now we can add this one to the list.

One of the most striking parts of the book, for me, was this-

'The man has forgotten what is hot or cold.

He forgot what is wind or rain.

The man forgot the elements of Nature.'

I believe this is one of the most damning judgements on our lives today. We are controlled by our electronic devices, that makes me actually shudder at former Sun Microsystems supremo, Scott McNealy, who said 'we want everyone to be connected, everywhere.'

I thought that was a fine ideal at the time. Since then, Sun has gone the way of the technological dodo, and Mark Zuckerburg wants us checking Facebook even when we are outdoors!

No. Let's reclaim our place in the universe - with Nature at our centre.

I'd like to think this is the message the author wishes to convey in those few sentences, but I expect it runs much deeper, much more meaningful than that.

I would like to think Miss Serruya is working on a new non-fiction text. One wonders what she would treat us with.

If you want a book that will make you THINK - get this book. It's wonderful, but not in the literal sense of the word. It is not an easy read, despite its brevity. But then, it doesn't need to be long.

The best authors know when they have arrived at the final page.
Wow, Cristiane Serruya, I'm blown away.
The Modern Man is a philosophical examination of the often dark platitudes of human beings.

Excerpt
"His thirst for power and his selfishness took away his wisdom, freedom, humanity, but gifted him with the monotonous security of the known, the unchanging, the unfeeling.
Was it really a gift?
Now, the man is alone in a room without human warmth, isolated by technology that solves everything, that does everything."

Just this morning I was sitting in an American Literature class listening to my professor as she discussed a short story by Mark Twain. The pretty young girl who sits to my right never looked away from her phone. Not once. She's probably about 18 years old. Cristiane Serruya was 18 when she wrote The Modern Man, and that was before everybody had cell phones in school. If you don't understand what I'm getting at you're trying too hard.

We're abandoning our humanity so we don't have to think anymore. We don't want to worry or be uncomfortable. We don't want to fight for what we believe in. Just let the politicians figure it out. They know what they're doing, right?

Excerpt
"The man of the so called modern centuries is a primate.
A caveman."

Human beings are getting a bit carried away. What happened to dignity? Our capacity for fulfillment through reason and community? Call me a pessimist, but I think that we're becoming more and more disconnected from one another. When is enough enough? When we can no longer feel or see or taste - because we've built machines to do it for us?

But there is a solution. As the author puts it, we need "To behave better, not to better the world."

Bravo!
We see the modern man and all his modern problems. He struggles today just as ardently as he did in 1988 when this paper was written, just as he did since the beginning of his existence. The only thing that's changed are tools. Man's struggles with himself and his place in the world will always be the same, regardless of the point in time.
The author provides no solutions for man's dilemma, probably because there isn't one or the challenge is too grand to tackle. Man is portrayed as a feeble creature riddled with self doubt and oozing with misguided hope. Whatever man's troubles are, it seems that we are still in control of our own lives. If we created the problems we face today, does it not make sense that we can be the ones to clean up the mess?
All in all it was a provocative read that will ignite many intriguing conversations!