Journal of a bibliophile

  40 rules of love is a beautiful book by Elif Shafak that  revolves around the concept of Sufism and spirituality. It is a delightful entanglement of two narratives - one is set in 21st-century  Massachusetts and follows the story of a stereotypical housewife named Ella. Hers is a story of lost love and hope. She is given the task to write a report on the book "Sweet Blasphemy" which is written by Aziz Zahara. The second narrative is that of the book "Sweet Blasphemy" set in the 13th-century Turkey and Iran which follows the journey of shams of Tabiz as he wanders from place to place looking for an equal, a confidante with which he could share his knowledge.    Over time, Ella has grown complacent with her agonized life, giving up on love and hope. She continues to lead her day-to-day life, drowning herself with household chores and avoiding conflicts.  as the story unfolds, she is completely mesmerized by the "Sweet Blasphemy" and decides to take philoso...

  “Man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.”- Albert Camus  So what exactly is the myth of Sisyphus? The original myth is greek folklore which follows the story of Sisyphus, the king of ephyra who cheated death twice. He was then condemned by the gods to spend eternity in hell pushing a boulder up a steep hill only for it to roll down just as it reaches the top.  To most people, this would seem like torment but with a dramatic twist of perception, Albus Camus says that one must try to imagine Sisyphus happy. Here Camus  tries to portray a different, more "out there" perspective of the same in his book "The Myth of Sisyphus." He uses the myth as a metaphor  for the individual's persistent struggle against the essential absurdity of life. He asks questions such as - Is life really as futile as...