What do we do when things go wrong?
Years ago, when I first spotted this book in a stationery shop, I decided to buy it without even flipping through its pages. On the cover, three men were being carried by the river's current toward an unknown destination. The title revealed little more than the image itself: Three Men in a Boat. Where they were going and why remained hidden between the pages.
For some reason, I never got around to reading it. The book sat forgotten on a shelf for years, quietly waiting for me. Then one day I picked it up and finally began. Soon, I discovered why these three men had embarked on such a sudden and peculiar boating trip. Tired of their daily routines and convinced that they were suffering from all sorts of illnesses, they believe an adventure will do them good. Instead, the following two weeks prove far more challenging than expected. They can never quite agree on what should be done or how it should be done. They blame one another, make a mess of simple tasks, and seem incapable of catching a break. Jerome narrates all of this with an exaggerated sense of humor and remarkable wit.
In the end, the three companions more or less accomplish what they set out to do. By the time they return to dry land, they are rather proud of themselves. But perhaps this book was written not only to amuse, but also to make us reflect. As we accompany these three friends like an invisible fourth passenger, we spend much of the journey wanting to step in and sort things out for them.
And yet, when things go wrong in our own lives, what exactly do we do?
Currently being the only reader and the first reviewer of this book is thrilling! Alright, let's start.
So, this book is literally a conspiracy theory itself.
Silas Orven is a man, a supposed time-traveller, who appeared in a private Facebook group in about 2024-2025 if I remember correctly. In that group he claimed that he came from the future to try and edit the timeline because humanity in his era of the future is having massive problems. If you can "edit" the timeline, it creates a new variable. Our current actions, if they are different, can create a new result and new future timeline. At first, people mocked him, trolled him, dismissed him completely. But when he began accurately predicting specific events, people were stunned and began taking him far more seriously. Some even started idolizing him and treating him like some kind of divine figure, even though he repeatedly said he wasn’t a prophet or anything divine and that no one should worship him. The guy became a sensation, basically.
So in 2025 he published this book and then completely disappeared. No one knows where he is. No one can identify him. His name doesn’t even show up in any global database. Some of his most devoted followers genuinely believe he went back to the future, where he came from.
I read the book, and it’s incredibly well-written. Some parts are genuinely disturbing; his descriptions of the future and the era he comes from are pretty terrifying. It's pretty dystopian. It’s impressive how he explains how time travel supposedly works, and he even touches on several taboo topics like Hitler, aliens and their origins, why they abduct humans, as well as God, the Bible, the Qur’an, who built the pyramids and why, whether humans will achieve eternal life, what happens after death, and so
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Ya neden neden? Rast gelirseniz sakın okumayın çünkü aynen bu tepkiyi verirsiniz sonunda. Oku babam oku ama sonu yok. Nasıl New York Times Bestseller olabilir bu kitap? Colleen Hoover hatrına mı?
Psikolojik yarı biyografi
Joanne Greenberg’in kendi yaşam öyküsünden yola çıkarak (Hannah Green takma adıyla) kaleme aldığı Sana Gül Bahçesi Vadetmedim (I Never Promised You a Rose Garden), psikolojik gerçekçilik türünün dünya edebiyatındaki en sarsıcı, en dürüst ve en ilham verici başyapıtlarından biridir.
Aimé Césaire is a Martinican poet and a politician whose express himself in French with Negro characteristics. He does things with words beyond my imagination. A true preacher of Black people. Very strong and decisive. We as Kurds, have a lot to learn from Black struggle. A colonized land means colonized minds also. We have to decolonize our minds first. We have to stop the alienation.
A must read.
This was freaking hard to read man. Should've gone with the tr translation but I just didn't want to. Just a reminder to myself: never EVER read books in translation if it's not originally English written...
Sanırım hayatımda bu kadar detaylı yazılmış bir İngilizce kitap okuduğumu söyleyemem. Bir noktadan sonra bu kitabın iyi çevrilmiş bir Türkçe versiyonunu okumayı gerçekten çok isterdim, ama sanırım böyle bir çevirisi yok — ya da en azından ben denk gelmedim. Bu kitabı okurken bir an bile küçük bir detayı kaçırırsanız, ne okuduğunuzu unutabiliyorsunuz. Çünkü hiçbir şey göründüğü gibi değil. Her şey düşüncelerden ibaret ve düşünceler her şey olabilir, değil mi? Mutlu bir şarkı sizi iyileştirebilir ya da hüzünlü bir şarkı kırık parçalarınızı onarmanıza yardımcı olabilir.
Okurken hikâyenin nereye varacağını çok merak ettim ve tahmin ettiğim gibi hiç olmadı. Hatta sonu beni gerçekten şaşırttı. Kafamın karıştığı çok fazla yer oldu. Ana diliniz dışında bir dilde kitap okumanın zorluklarından biri de bu sanırım. Ama Raya ve Q’yu karakter olarak gerçekten çok sevdim. Hâlâ sonundan emin değilim. Gerçek miydi, hayal miydi? Mutlu oldular mı? Birbirlerine kavuştular mı? Bence yazar bana bir açıklama borçlu.
İlk başta treni çok sevmiştim ama trenin sırları ortaya çıktıkça, Raya gibi ben de aslında böyle bir trende olmak istemediğimi fark ettim. Ama eğer bir gün denk gelirseniz, bence okuyun. Çünkü sizi oldukça ilginç bir yolculuk bekliyor olacak.
Sözlerimi kitaptaki Raya’nın şarkısıyla bitirmek istiyorum:
Live. Breathe. Be.
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I don’t think I’ve ever read an English book written with this much detail before. At some point, I really wished I could read a well-translated Turkish version of this book, but I don’t think one exists — or at least I’ve never come across it. While reading, if you miss even the smallest detail for a moment, you suddenly forget what exactly you’re reading. Because nothing is what you think it is. Everything is made of thoughts, and thoughts can become
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