A Brief Review of Albert Camus' "The Possessed" by Chuck Trunks (Trunks Art)

Nampa, Idaho - August 31, 2026 - Imagine how impactful a novel must be if it was written and published in Russian by a renowned writer in 1872, then rewritten in French as a three-part stage play by another famous writer in 1959, followed by its translation into English so a not-so-famous writer could read it in 2026. These were my thoughts as I read Albert Camus’ The Possessed, a theatrical adaptation based on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel, The Devils, a fictional story based on real events about the corrosive nature of political violence, ideological extremism, and absolute nihilism, which both authors felt were the root of all evil. Dostoevsky and Camus were influenced by the turmoil of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, but as you’ll read in the following sample from The Possessed, this same scourge is alive and well in the present century:

LIPUTIN: Yes indeed. He proposes dividing humanity into two unequal parts. About a tenth will have absolute freedom and unlimited authority over the other nine tenths, who will have to lose their personality and become like a flock of sheep. Kept in the state of complete submission of sheep, they will, on the other hand, achieve the state of innocence of sheep. In short, it will be Eden, except that men will have to work.

SHIGALOV: Yes. That’s how I achieve equality. All men are slaves and equal in their slavery. They can’t be equal otherwise. Hence it is essential to level. For instance, the level of education and talent will be lowered. Since men of talent always tend to rise, Cicero’s tongue will have to be torn out, Copernicus’s eyes gouged out, and Shakespeare stoned. There is my system.

LIPUTIN: Yes, Mr. Shigalov discovered that superior faculties are germs of inequality, hence of despotism. Consequently, as soon as a man is seen to have superior gifts, he is shot down or imprisoned. Even very handsome people are suspect in this regard and must be suppressed.

SHIGALOV: And even fools, if they are very notable fools, for they might lead others into the temptation of glorifying in their superiority, which is a germ of despotism. By these means, on the other hand, equality will be absolute.

Camus’ theatrical adaptation of Dostoevsky’s The Demons is about the burgeoning socialist movements growing in Russia during the 1860s—decades before the Russian Revolution in 1917 following WWI—but The Possessed is more of a cautionary tale warning us that as long as we allow nihilistic despots to claim power and control, we cannot advance as a species. Camus’ words spoken during his acceptance of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957 give me hope to continue my own writing: “Whatever our personal weaknesses may be, the nobility of our craft (writing) will always be rooted in two commitments, difficult to maintain: the refusal to lie about what one knows and the resistance to oppression.”

-Chuck Trunks

“This work was written independently by the author without the use of generative AI.”

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All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

A Brief Review of Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" by Chuck Trunks (Trunks Art)

 

Nampa, Idaho - July 5, 2026 - I thought I could do it—reading Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (1906) after having read John Steinbeck’s gut-wrenching The Grapes of Wrath (1939) only months earlier. I limped through the first half of Sinclair’s seminal novel, a fictional story exposing the horrific conditions of the Chicago meatpacking industry, before calling it quits, saying, “Enough already—I can’t take it!” Apparently, I have no stomach when it comes to the plight of the innocent, especially if the story is based on facts gathered firsthand by the author.

The two books are eerily similar, each centered on an uprooted, multigenerational family in distress as they struggle for economic security and independence in unfamiliar and hostile environments. Whereas Steinbeck’s Joad family faces poverty, prejudice, and cruelty as migrant farmworkers in 1930s-central California, Sinclair’s Rudkus family is subjected to even worse indignities as workers in the stockyard district in early 20th-century Chicago. Shockingly, it took a muckraking exposé like The Jungle to force the government’s hand. The book’s release spurred the creation of the Meat Inspection Act, authorizing USDA oversight of the meatpacking industry, and the Pure Food and Drug Act, which ultimately gave rise to the FDA. In other words, the heartless owners of these hellish enterprises had to be publicly shamed before lifting a finger to ensure the safety of their employees and those who consumed their products. How disgusting.

However, most disturbingly, 30 years later, it’s “déjà vu all over again.” This time, it was Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath that uncovered the horrendous working conditions and slave wages of the agricultural workers on large California farms, triggering congressional investigations and, ultimately, migrant worker rights and protections. At this point, it’s difficult for me to believe that any change has taken place—at least the kind of change that doesn’t separate a human being from basic needs and dignity. I believe America does a terrific job of making it look like real change has taken place when in truth it’s a game packed with appeasement and lies. What’s coming next—a book exposing the exploitation of Amazon workers in its fulfillment centers? A tell-all account of how Uber and DoorDash executives capitalize on the desperation of their drivers? To me, the mantra never changes in this country: corporate greed over human need.

-Chuck Trunks

“This work was written independently by the author without the use of generative AI.”

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All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

A Brief Review of Edwin P. Hoyt's "Sunk by the Bismarck" by Chuck Trunks (Trunks Art)

 

Nampa, Idaho - June 23, 2026 - I’m convinced that my interest in true stories about World War II stems from a fact-gathering gene located on my Y chromosome—somewhere between the gene that prevents me from asking for help and the one that stops me from talking about my feelings. Having read Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Patton (2014), Killing the SS (2018), and Killing the Rising Sun (2016), three exceptionally gripping books about the Second World War, I was thrilled to have found Edwin P. Hoyt’s Sunk by the Bismarck (1977) on the library shelf last week.

Hoyt’s storytelling is painstakingly detailed, offering the reader an encyclopedia-like account of Britain’s greatest warship, HMS Hood, from its initial launch in 1920 to its eventual demise, courtesy of Nazi Germany’s super-battleship, Bismarck, in the spring of 1941. Throughout the book, he rarely veers from a chronological writing style, expounding at the strategic level, reporting on ports of call, mission dates, battle outcomes, and military chain of command. When combined with his regard for pageantry, it’s obvious that Hoyt, an American writer and historian, is enamored with British Royal Navy regalia.

Unlike Bill O’Reilly’s books, I felt disconnected from the action, cloistered inside a London war room, wedged between decorated tacticians moving and repositioning miniature replicas of battleships, destroyers, and cruisers on a 100-square-foot table featuring an enormous map of Europe. If you enjoy books focused on the “art of war,” then Sunk by the Bismarck is for you. However, if you prefer “boots on the ground” action and an abundance of human-interest stories, any of Bill O’Reilly’s World War II books will be a much more engaging read.

-Chuck Trunks

“This work was written independently by the author without the use of generative AI.”

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All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

A Brief Review of John Updike's "Rabbit, Run" by Chuck Trunks (Trunks Art)

 

Nampa, Idaho - June 9, 2026 - “Gripping discomfort.” That’s how I described how I felt 10 years ago while watching a community theater’s adaptation of Elizabeth Taylor’s and Richard Burton’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). It’s the same two-word description I’d offer if asked how I felt while reading John Updike’s Rabbit, Run (1960). Here lies a tragic story in which the Pulitzer Prize-winning author masterfully reveals what calamity awaits those who succumb to mainstream indoctrination, tradition, and the expectations of others rather than follow one’s inner compass.

The story follows Harry Angstrom, a young family man, who, on a whim, recklessly decides to turn his life upside down in hopes of easing the inner turmoil of not knowing who he is or what he wants. In the process, he burdens those around him with his struggle between self and society, the pursuit of pleasure and family duty, and even between callousness and empathy. Harry wants more out of life than the humdrum existence he shares with Janice and their two-year-old son, Nelson. His natural inclination is to run away, but he soon learns that he hasn’t a destination, both literally and figuratively.

Prior to reading Rabbit, Run, I imagined my life would’ve been better had I never left my hometown. I could see myself working just up the road, mowing the lawn on Saturdays, attending church on Sundays, and raising a family with a girl I went to high school with—all to the tune of Carly Simon’s “That’s the Way I Always Heard It Should Be” (1971). But then again, I might’ve ended up exactly like Harry—living in quiet desperation, pining for the life I was supposed to have while destroying the lives of everyone around me.

-Chuck Trunks

“This work was written independently by the author without the use of generative AI.”

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All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

A Brief Review of Hermann Hesse's "Demian" by Chuck Trunks (Trunks Art)

Nampa, Idaho - May 27, 2026 - I didn’t begin reading books about the path to enlightenment until after I had already found my own. How could I, when I didn’t even know what was happening to me? Despite exiting this world before I was born, Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) is one of those authors who, from his grave in Switzerland, makes me feel less alone in a society that shuns those unwilling to follow the herd mentality. I recently finished reading Demian (1919), a coming-of-age story that follows ten-year-old Emil Sinclair from his elementary school days to his first year of university studies. As he transitions from childhood to adolescence, Sinclair meets and befriends another boy, Max Demian, who turns out to be his fated spiritual guide, turning up time and again in moments when Sinclair needs him most.

Like Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea (1952), Hesse’s Demian is told from the perspective of the main character, where most of the story’s dialogue is comprised of internal conversations Sinclair has with himself as his childhood innocence dissolves in the shadow of a much darker world outside the protective structure of his parent’s love. What I like most about Hesse’s book is that it cleverly equates the higher consciousness of enlightenment with the disillusionment that naturally accompanies budding pubescence. In other words, for those readers who struggle to understand what it means to achieve enlightenment—to become equally aware of both the most beautiful and most dastardly truths about the world—they need only to reflect on their childhoods, where the polar opposites of abomination and splendor first opened their eyes.

After reading and reviewing my third Hermann Hesse novel, I’m again impressed by how relevant his insights remain. Despite having written much of his work almost a century ago, on another continent, and in a different language, his understanding of enlightenment feels entirely attuned to today’s modern society.

-Chuck Trunks

“This work was written independently by the author without the use of generative AI.”

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All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

A Brief Review of Bill O'Reilly's "Killing Reagan" by Chuck Trunks (Trunks Art)

Nampa, Idaho - February 23, 2026 - If you like historical events and true-life stories and harbor a secret penchant for the salacious, then Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Series is for you. So far, I’ve read eight of the 13 books, adding Killing Reagan to my list earlier this month. His books always leave me feeling both satisfied and disillusioned: satisfied by newfound knowledge, yet disappointed that his unique insights and writing style have not been more embraced by educators or the media. Prior to reading this book, I assumed I was highly informed about the 40^th President of the United States.

My confidence stemmed from several notable factors: he was the president for half my high school years and all of my college years; he was the governor of California while I was attending elementary school in Los Angeles; I grew up in a Republican-centered family and community; I’ve visited the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, three times; and (despite his dementia from Alzheimer’s) I said, “Good morning, Mr. President,” to him from 10 feet away in Santa Monica in 1996. Yet, nothing in my previous experiences could have prepared me for the shocking revelations in Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Reagan.

I think it’s hard to write stories—especially stories that most people think they’ve already heard. But this is the very essence of Bill O’Reilly’s brilliance. He recounts historical events from unique perspectives that weave both facts and human interests into a framework of masterful storytelling. Can you imagine how daunting it would be if you were asked to write a book about Elvis, John F. Kennedy, or General George Custer? With so much having been written about these iconic individuals, you’d probably tell yourself there’s nothing more to say about them. Not only could Bill O’Reilly write the book and add it to his Killing Series, but he’d also write a New York Times bestseller you couldn’t put down.

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All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

A Brief Review of Carl Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World" by Chuck Trunks (Trunks Art)

Nampa, Idaho - February 15, 2026 - I first encountered Carl Sagan in 1980 via my family’s 19-inch floor console—a TV sturdy enough to withstand a Cold War-era nuclear blast. Cosmos: A Personal Voyage aired weekly on PBS and featured 13 episodes centered around cosmology and its connection to the origin of life. He wasn’t just a renowned astronomer and planetary scientist; he was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author nobly focused on advancing the public’s understanding of science.

I purchased The Demon-Haunted World (1995) thinking he’d written a book warning us what would happen to society if the soon-to-be-extinct scientific mindset—a combination of both wonder and skepticism—wasn’t revitalized within the next 20 or 30 years. Instead, he wrote a book about how the lack of wonder and skepticism allowed outrageous claims made by politicians, bureaucrats, corporations, theologians, and pseudoscientists to proceed unchecked throughout history. It’s a long book that, in my opinion, spends too much time detailing UFO abductions, witch hunts, and religious dogma.

Carl Sagan was an incredibly smart man whose explanation about the importance of books made me a lifelong reader; however, I struggled to finish The Demon-Haunted World, thinking I should’ve started with one of his more popular books, Cosmos or Contact. 

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All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

A Brief Review of Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises" by Chuck Trunks (Trunks Art)

Nampa, Idaho - February 10, 2026 - Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises (1926) was published 100 years ago, and yet, I found myself reading a story that could’ve been written yesterday—that is, if you could pretend that 30 years of excessive busyness and screen time didn’t dumb down America, unplugging human connection and erasing any semblance of what we used to call “community.” The premise of the story is extraordinarily simple—a group of friends travel from France to Spain to enjoy a week-long festival in Pamplona; however, each of Hemingway’s main characters is complicated, self-defeating, and deeply flawed—just like me and anyone else who doesn’t lie to themselves.  

 

Set in Europe at a time when the populace was beginning to feel far enough away from the aftermath of WW1 to begin enjoying life again, The Sun Also Rises offers a firsthand account of the author’s adventurous and tumultuous life as an overseas expatriate. Of course, the book is categorized as literary fiction, but how could it not be autobiographical when he describes everything in such vivid detail? I kept saying to myself, “He had to have been there—doing those things—with those people.” And sure enough, after a brief internet search, I found pictures of Hemingway sitting with friends in a crowded Spanish café and tempting fate as an amateur bullfighter in Pamplona—both from 1925. But that isn’t why I loved his first novel.

 

I connected with The Sun Also Rises because I could see my own flaws in not only one or two of his main characters but in all of them, reducing me from a passive reader to a hapless voyeur, devouring a hedonistic storyline chock full of debauchery, impulsiveness, insecurity, pettiness, and promiscuity. Hemingway is famous for his signature narrative style, but he was a master at understanding base human nature, which, apparently, hasn’t changed much—if at all—in the last 100 years or so.

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All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

A Brief Review of Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" by Chuck Trunks (Trunks Art)

Nampa, Idaho - January 26, 2026 - As a teen in the 1970s, I distinctly recall reading Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea (1952) during my sophomore or junior year. Back then, I was old enough to appreciate the story of a Cuban fisherman’s struggle against nature to catch a massive marlin but too young to grasp the deeper meaning of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novella. After reading it again 45 years later, I’m both awed and humbled by Hemingway’s signature writing style, which, in this case, is mostly limited to Santiago’s thoughts and conversations he has with himself. However, once I understood the Nobel Prize-winning author’s underlying message buried within a simple story of enduring hardship, I had to ask myself, “Why would high school English teachers think The Old Man and the Sea is a book for 16-year-olds?”

Honestly, I don’t think I could’ve appreciated Hemingway’s cautionary reminder that dignity can still be had in failure during my 30s, 40s, or even my 50s. What I’m trying to say is that I believe one needs to have come up short many times in life before the sentient message behind The Old Man and the Sea can be properly acknowledged and valued. “Is it possible to fail with dignity?” Hemingway had an answer. “Yes, it’s the only way to fail.” 

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All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

A Brief Review of Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms by Chuck Trunks (Trunks Art)

Nampa, Idaho - January 7, 2026 - A Farewell to Arms (1929) by Ernest Hemingway is one of those books that most people have heard of but haven’t read. Up until a few days ago, I was one of those people. Set in the ravaged countryside of Italy during WW1, the book wasn’t anything I had expected. Of course, it was written in the author’s signature style—direct, minimalistic, and unapologetically masculine—but it was less about the horrors of a senseless war and more about a budding love affair that had me rooting for the couple as soon as they met. Normally, I stay away from romance novels, but this one checked all the boxes for me.

Although the story takes place on another continent more than 100 years ago, the polite discourse between all the characters—no matter their role in the novel—is a sad reminder of how today’s public spaces lack any semblance of manners that help create a sense of community. Obviously, life was harder back then, and yet, while reading A Farewell to Arms, I found myself wishing I was born much earlier than I was—not just to meet and fall in love with Catherine, but to enjoy a time when discovering and befriending people meant something.

All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

TRUNKS ART writes book reviews, too. Here's my latest on Melania Trump's autobiography...

 Nampa, Idaho - December 23, 2025 - If writing for a large audience has taught me anything, it’s that relatability and entertainment are paramount for keeping readers engaged. Apparently, the ghostwriters of Melania Trump’s self-titled autobiography (2024) never learned these lessons. Despite wanting to tap out before the end of the first chapter, I continued to the bitter end, repeatedly asking myself, “At what point does she become a mere mortal?”

 I picked up the First Lady’s book earlier this month because I wanted to find out who the real woman is behind the couture, the fancy hats, flawless makeup, and perfectly styled hair. But after spending two evenings giving her the benefit of the doubt, I’m back to where I started—clueless. If you’re the type who enjoys reading self-aggrandizing LinkedIn posts, perusing nauseating Christmas letters, or watching reruns of Robin Leach’s Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, then you’re going to love Melania—a lobotomized, tone-deaf book that is both static and bloodless.

 I’m certainly not the only one who feels this way. Melania has been universally panned across the board, leaving reviewers to shake their heads and suspiciously wonder if her whitewashed autobiography is just another piece of propaganda to toe the company line. My advice to the First Lady: Get rid of the ghostwriters, turn off the AI content generator, and let America see the real you. 

All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

Sometimes Authors DO Write Back!

 

Nampa, Idaho - November 18, 2025 - I realize that it’s unlikely I’ll hear back from an author, but I write to them anyway. However, sometimes I get lucky—as I did with Elizabeth Greenwood.

Here’s what transpired:

Dear Ms. Greenwood,

I just finished reading your captivating book, Love Lockdown: Dating, Sex, and Marriage in America’s Prisons. You’re receiving this letter of gratitude through your website—rather than an Amazon review (five stars, by the way)—because I found your book at my local library. I want you to know that I feel so much smarter and more informed about a facet of our society that so many of us disregard or relegate to titillating soundbites on shows like A&E’s Lock Up.

By showcasing the various couples throughout the book, you put real faces and emotions into stories that all of us can relate to. Of course, most of us aren’t having to navigate the conundrum that is the prison system of the United States to see our loved ones, but we can all relate to what you wrote on page 357: “But all relationships, in their very essence, are acts of delusion.”

Thank you for all the work you put into this wonderful book, Ms. Greenwood, and thank you for opening my eyes (and my heart) to those courageous wives who are willing to sacrifice so much for the chance of finding true love.

Sincerely,

Chuck Trunks

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Chuck, you have made my day, week, month, year!!! Thank you so much for reaching out to let me know your experience of reading the book. It really means the world to me. Thanks again!
xo liz

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All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).