I finished the three lives (and therefore the full book) today. They were easy to read once I got into each one. I'm glad I read them. Taken together with the book they really seem to be an argument for meditation. Which I suppose is also an argument for a separation from the world and ambition. Although then it seems strange that the final story (the Indian setting) is of forking from the path of the world into a hermit's isolation. Where the main story ends with the importance of a return to the world. Again the narrative setup complicates things. If I remember right the idea is that the three lives are Knecht's dissertation as a student. So they represent his views then, and could therefore be the argument he was making for himself then? But there is enough in there that is not 'a perfect life' or even flattery of him as an individual - there is a lot that acknowledges that while some things would be constant his life could be quite different depending on when and where he was born - that we're not supposed to read them directly against the grain. Again I don't know quite what the narrative framing is up to, but the nuances of it are in themselves enjoyable, and maybe just suggest that it's impossible to untangle everything. The ending of the main part still sings - the abruptness of that end but it being with a person who had achieved some of their purpose - it does feel like a note struck and then ringing out and you feel it more for it being the last time struck (not followed up by others). A fun book! Again I'll say i t really makes you want to commit to meditation. It has something broader to say about the role of intellectual but I think that is more complicated. I don't know if I have a good handle to sum that up. Maybe just 'do meditation but also stay involved in the world, don't retreat entirely,