SAPIENS

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3 stars = I liked it.
What I liked?
Firstly, it was an audiobook from Audible and I liked the narrator - Derek Perkins.
Secondly, I liked author's sense of humour.
As for contents, I have mixed feelings.
I have to admit that as long as the author presented his interpretation of events the knowledge of which is very limited - An Animal of No Significance - I liked it.
As the events were getting closer to our times and knowledge about them grew and grew, I got serious doubts regarding authors selection of facts and their interpretation.
So, I liked chapter - The Agricultural Revolution although it is also classified as History's Biggest Fraud.
Agricultural revolution meant bonding people to one place, limiting variety of activities (and variety of food) and a need for protection of goods.
It led to all the others benefits and failures of civilisation and to the final chapter - The End of Homo Sapiens.
I agree that with progress of knowledge and entrance of AI there comes the END, on the other hand I have to admit that I cherished the fruits of art and culture and consider that they justified the price.
As for my reservations regarding interpretation of facts I mention just one -
Author mentions that till year 1500 there were many civilisations and empires which were equal to each other. And then - Discovery of Ignorance - and out of sudden Europe takes an unimaginable lead and absolutely dominates the civilisation of whole World.
Author shows absolutely no interest in explaining this phenomenon although it decided about everything we know.
For me it is impossible not to relate it to the fact that Europe was dominated by Christianity.
I read somewhere an explanation that Christianity promoted idea of individual responsible for his fate while other religions put more emphasis on Destiny or meditation.
Interestingly, following the path of Christianity, we can see a clear economic difference between countries which grew under Catholic influence (Spain, Italy, South America) and Protestant ones (Germany, Netherlands, England, USA).
Author did not notice it.


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Swimming in the Dark

Swimming in the Dark by Tomasz Jedrowski
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The book is dominated by description of feelings of a young man attracted to another young man.
I have to admit that initially I received it as extremally self-centred approach and lost most of interest - there are over 7 billion individuals on this planet so how to bother about all od them.
Eventually I continued the book and managed to discover some sympathy to the main character, mainly because he presented his experiences and feelings in quite gentle way.
What disappointed me was strong exaggeration of bad sides of Communism in Poland.
Author mentions falsifying Polish history.
I attended Polish schools in Communist times and I think there was only one important historical fact missing - the Katyn massacre.
Similarly - books and censorship.
After year 1956 practically each book recognised in Western literature was available. The only exception was Orwell's 1984.

Sometimes it takes a funny turn.

There is a scene where the main character finds his host bleeding strongly. Instead of ringing for an ambulance or at least doctor's home visit, he joins a queue in a medical centre and when eventually reaches the doctor, is shocked when doctor expects to see the patient.

Very important part of the story are references to J. Baldwin's book - Giovanni's Room.
Again, there is impression that it was a forbidden book.
I doubt if authorities were aware of such a book... and by the way - main character reads it in year 1980. I strongly doubt that at that time it has been translated to Polish and the main character at his time didn't know English.

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