Books and Ideas (08)

I read for ideas. What follows is my attempt to summarize the main ideas of books I have read.

The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Volume One. James Boswell.
The most famous and thorough biography in English literature. Samuel Johnson is one of the most quoted people in the English language.

The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher. Lewis Thomas.
This book by Lewis Thomas, a physician, is a series of essays consisting of ideas and reflections about medicine, biology and the nature of the cell. One idea that stood out for me was Lewis’s speculation about the hereafter: Where do all the consciousnesses go?

Lolita. Vladimir Nabokov.
Novel. Ah ha! A dirty book! Right? The basic plot certainly seems so--a middle-aged man chasing around after a pre-teenage girl. However, Nabokov says it is actually a celebration of the American language and culture, and anyone who reads it will begin to realize this purpose during the odyssey of Humbert and Lolita across America. In some ways, Lolita is like Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.

The Magus. John Fowles.
For a while, in the early 1970s, this novel became a cult classic. Many high school and college students were reading it. No one could figure it out. The scenes were page-turners. You couldn’t stop reading them, But put them together and what did they all mean? It took several readings, but I finally figured it out.

Main Street. Sinclair Lewis.
Novel. Lewis captures the “spirit” of small-town America—its tediousness, self-importance; endless repetition of activities, jokes and stories; conformity; and intolerance. Carol sets out to reform the town, to introduce it to high culture, but the town eventually reduces her to resigned acceptance of its values.

The Making of the President 1960. Theodore H. White.
Gives insights into the personalities and strategies of the Presidential candidates, JFK and Richard Nixon, in 1960. Also reveals the strain of undergoing the primaries. The first television presidential debates.

Mansfield Park. Jane Austen.
Novel Example of life at a different time (early 19th century) in a different society (British). In a sense, Austen’s novels are soap operas. The plots move at a snail’s pace and feature many twists and turns. However, they are about real people who use and hurt other people. In this novel, two good people emerge—Fanny and Edmund—and they eventually find their way to each other.

The Marble Faun or The Romance of Monte Beni. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1860).
Romance/Novel. Theme is the need for the experience of sin in order to become truly human. Complete innocence results in an inhuman intolerance. A meditation on guilt and the effects of sin. It’s also a pretty good travelogue on the city of Rome.

The Masks of God: Creative Mythology. Joseph Campbell.
The author tries to show that we are unwittingly controlled by mythology and that mythology, of which we are conscious and unconscious, rules our responses to life, guides our actions in life.

Medea. Euripides.
This play is the story of a woman scorned, who took vicious revenge on her lover, Jason.