Unpacking ‘Intermezzo’: The Mysterious Book I Found

Someone left this book outside my dorm building, so I decided to read it. You read that right — some anonymous person, admirer or whomever left a random book just outside my dorm building in Baker Tower. Many would question why I would assume it was directed towards me. I have a very good reason to believe that: the book itself had my Aetna Insurance letters inside it. Of course that prompted a barrage of questions.

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GUEST ROOM | Classics is the Best Subject to Address Our Current Age

At Cornell, I’ve come to realize that, by this point in history, to think that anything at all is unprecedented is simply to have not read enough history. There is no question that someone else has not already tried to answer, no issue that another society has not previously addressed (if not in content then at least in form). If, therefore, we find ourselves so unable to locate a prior moment comparable with our own, perhaps we just need to look further back in time.

Who is Han Kang, Winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature?

According to the Nobel Prize website, Han Kang was born on Nov. 27, 1970; she currently resides in Seoul, South Korea; she was the sole recipient of the prize; and she was awarded the prize “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.” She has written eight novels, The Vegetarian being one of her more well known pieces. She has also written some short stories and poetry. She is obviously a popular novelist, incredibly talented and apparently, deserving of the Nobel Prize. This begs the question:

Why haven’t I heard of her before?

SWASING | The Novelty of Reading for Pleasure

When I’m asked about my hobbies, I often respond that I enjoy reading (which is true, for the record). Then when the inevitable question, “What’s the last good book you read?” follows, my mind goes blank; the titles of every book I’ve ever read disappear into thin air. It disappoints me that the last time I had time to read a good book was so long ago that I can’t even remember what book it was. My pile of “to be read” books grows larger by the day, while my “finished reading” list remains stagnant. 

Reading for pleasure while in college is a topic that has been discussed again, and again and again by Sun columnists. As students pursuing a vast array of academically intense interests, many of us find that we spend so much time on reading assignments and other mentally taxing work that by the time we get a chance to relax, reading for fun sounds like a hill we can’t even begin to climb. Instead, we opt for a mind-numbing Netflix show that we can watch passively while we disengage our brains and scroll through social media.

PONTIN | Whodunit?

Our suspects are nearly always heightened, hyperbolic variations on what we would consider to be “normal people,” a far cry from what we recognize in our own social circles and in ourselves. They are distant royalty, accomplished and esteemed academics, famed members of the one percent. It is not long, however, before an ironic relationship begins to reveal itself. Even amidst a churning sea of captivating individuals, the detective somehow always emerges as the most intriguing.