I read for ideas. Here are some of the ideas I have found in books.
Wuthering Heights. Emily Brontë.
Why read it? Novel. Somewhere I read that Emily Brontë disliked the controlled emotion and manners of Jane Austen’s novels, and set out to show that life is about passion. I do not know if this is true, but Wuthering Heights is certainly the opposite of the novels of Jane Austen. Wuthering Heights is about raw emotion, cruelty, vengeance and misanthropy. It is about anger, unbroken anger at the world and all the human beings in it. But it is also about a love that is passionate and unforgettable. Quite a mix.
Quote. Matthew Arnold: “For passion, vehemence and grief, she [Emily Brontë] has no equal since Byron.” Wuthering Heights was written a year before Emily Brontë died at age 29.
Quote. Heathcliff: “I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction.”
Quote: “For himself, he grew desperate; his sorrow was of that kind that will not lament; he neither wept nor prayed; he cursed and defied; execrated God and man….”
Quote. Catherine: “…he’s [Heathcliff] more myself than I am; whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightning or frost from fire.”
The Years of the Forest. Helen Hoover.
Why read it? Reminiscent of Thoreau, wife and husband, writer and illustrator, live in the Minnesota woods. It was no vacation. The conditions were primitive. But she and her husband were able to be independent, to work out their destiny without being dependent on anyone or any thing. They had to make their own decisions. They knew the animals with whom they had a close relationship as individuals, not just as wildlife. They learned to live with nature, not to control it.
Quote: “To us the efforts of man to ‘conquer nature’ and so prove himself greater than the unity of which he is a part or superior to the forces that created him, seem not only dangerous and presumptuous, but stupid and silly.”
True love—the story of Mr. And Mrs. Twit, two injured juncos. When Mr. Twit recovered and was able to fly with the other birds, he did so. The Hoovers cared for Mrs. Twit with her injured wing over the winter. When spring came, the juncos returned, but one bird stayed apart—Mr. Twit. Mrs. Twit joyously joined him and they flew away together.
Quote: “I had already learned how to tell temperature by the feel of snow under my boots—soft and compressible around twenty degrees, crunching at zero, squeaking at ten to twenty below, crackling like small firecrackers at thirty below and colder.”
Quote: “First, we had not thought we were any more important than the flora and fauna around us; second, we had tried to leave as little trace of our passing over the earth’s surface as was possible.”
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Robert M. Pirsig.
Why read it? The author set out on a motorcycle vacation trip from Minnesota to California with his estranged teen-age son, Chris. It is actually a trip that retraces his career as a college teacher of writing before a mental breakdown. The ghost of “Phaedrus,” the person he was before his breakdown, is ever present. He is attempting to reconstruct what he was before his breakdown.
Zen is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that asserts enlightenment can be attained through meditation, self-contemplation and intuition rather than through faith and devotion; practiced mainly in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Also called Zen Buddhism.
Quote: “Grades really cover up failure to teach. A bad instructor can go through an entire quarter leaving absolutely nothing memorable in the minds of his class. Curve out the scores on an irrelevant test, and lave the impression that some have learned and some have not. But if the grades are removed the class is forced to wonder each day what it is really learning. The questions, What’s being taught? What’s the goal? How do the lectures and assignments accomplish the goal? become ominous. The removal of grades exposes a large and frightening vacuum.”
Quote: “Sometimes it’s a little better to travel than to arrive.”
Quote: “What the hell is quality?”
Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Books and Ideas (34)
I read for ideas. Here are some of the ideas I have found in books.
The Wonder Book for Boys and Girls. Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Why read it? Hawthorne displays the story teller’s art. While his writing style is ornate, his tales of the ancient myths sound as if they have been told in a summer meadow and in other comfortable settings with the children gathered round. Hawthorne intended to make the ancient classical myths presentable to children, but maybe adults need to rise to the wonder of children to appreciate the myths fully. Eustace Bright is Hawthorne’s composer and story teller. The myths that Eustace retells are “The Gorgon’s Head” (Medusa); “The Golden Touch” (Midas); “The Paradise of Children” (Pandora’s box); Hercules and “The Three Golden Apples”; “The Miraculous Pitcher” (Philemon and Baucis); “The Chimera” (Bellerophon and Pegasus). Enjoy.
Quote: “But some people have what we may call the ‘leaden touch,’ and make everything dull and heavy that they lay their fingers upon!”
Quote: “…a good little boy, who was always making particular inquiries about the precise height of giants and the littleness of fairies, how big was Marygold, and how much did she weigh after she was turned to gold?”
Quote: “Eustace Bright told the legend of Bellerophon with as much fervor and animation as if he had really been taking a gallop on the winged horse; at the conclusion, he was gratified to discern, by the glowing countenances of his auditors, how greatly they had been interested.”
The Writer’s Chapbook. George Plimpton, Ed.
Why read it? A chapbook is a short book with short entries. The Writer’s Chapbook is a book by writers on writing. The topics include the following: What is a writer? How to write a novel. Why poems are difficult to read. How writers write. And the characteristics of good writing. If you write as part of your profession or responsibilities or even if you are simply interested in writing, the ideas in this book will give you opportunity to reflect on the process and product of writing.
Quote: What are the characteristics of good writing? Robertson Davies: “…the ability to keep people wanting more. You cannot stop reading any of the great Russians.”
Quote: Henry Miller: “I’m always looking for the author who can lift me out of myself.”
Quote: Walker Percy: “But something keeps—or fails to keep—the reader reading the next sentence.”
Quote: Hemingway: “So that after he or she has read something it will become a part of his or her experience and seems actually to have happened; very hard to do and I’ve worked at it very hard.”
Who Wakes the Groundhog? Ronald Rood.
Why read it? From reading this book, I realize how unobservant I am about life around me. This book is packed with interesting facts about insects, birds and animals. The question in the title is about how life in nature experiences the seasons. If one studies nature, the seasons are not clearly marked as they are on the calendar. A complex set of circumstances often has to occur for insect, bird and animal life to flourish. The seasons flow from one to the other with some flora and fauna who are early and some who are laggard. The champion season jumper is the Arctic tern who spends his time at both poles and who rarely sees the sunset.
Quote: “It was one of those splendid days when the crunch of the snowshoes and the joy of living were all anyone would ever wish.”
Quote: “Like the rest of his woodland neighbors, he had little respect for the calendar anyway.”
Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews. Ed. Malcolm Cowley.
Why read it? What can ordinary writers learn from the comments by writers on their writing? The book begins with six and one-half pages of questions the interviewers asked the writers whom they interviewed. The list of questions is of value in itself for future interviewers of writers.
Quote. F. Mauriac: “The novel has lost its purpose.”
Quote. Joyce Carey. “A novel should be an experience and convey an emotional truth rather than arguments.”
Quote. William Faulkner: “Art has no concern with peace and contentment.”
Quote. Simenon: “Readers want a novel to probe their own troubles.”
The Wonder Book for Boys and Girls. Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Why read it? Hawthorne displays the story teller’s art. While his writing style is ornate, his tales of the ancient myths sound as if they have been told in a summer meadow and in other comfortable settings with the children gathered round. Hawthorne intended to make the ancient classical myths presentable to children, but maybe adults need to rise to the wonder of children to appreciate the myths fully. Eustace Bright is Hawthorne’s composer and story teller. The myths that Eustace retells are “The Gorgon’s Head” (Medusa); “The Golden Touch” (Midas); “The Paradise of Children” (Pandora’s box); Hercules and “The Three Golden Apples”; “The Miraculous Pitcher” (Philemon and Baucis); “The Chimera” (Bellerophon and Pegasus). Enjoy.
Quote: “But some people have what we may call the ‘leaden touch,’ and make everything dull and heavy that they lay their fingers upon!”
Quote: “…a good little boy, who was always making particular inquiries about the precise height of giants and the littleness of fairies, how big was Marygold, and how much did she weigh after she was turned to gold?”
Quote: “Eustace Bright told the legend of Bellerophon with as much fervor and animation as if he had really been taking a gallop on the winged horse; at the conclusion, he was gratified to discern, by the glowing countenances of his auditors, how greatly they had been interested.”
The Writer’s Chapbook. George Plimpton, Ed.
Why read it? A chapbook is a short book with short entries. The Writer’s Chapbook is a book by writers on writing. The topics include the following: What is a writer? How to write a novel. Why poems are difficult to read. How writers write. And the characteristics of good writing. If you write as part of your profession or responsibilities or even if you are simply interested in writing, the ideas in this book will give you opportunity to reflect on the process and product of writing.
Quote: What are the characteristics of good writing? Robertson Davies: “…the ability to keep people wanting more. You cannot stop reading any of the great Russians.”
Quote: Henry Miller: “I’m always looking for the author who can lift me out of myself.”
Quote: Walker Percy: “But something keeps—or fails to keep—the reader reading the next sentence.”
Quote: Hemingway: “So that after he or she has read something it will become a part of his or her experience and seems actually to have happened; very hard to do and I’ve worked at it very hard.”
Who Wakes the Groundhog? Ronald Rood.
Why read it? From reading this book, I realize how unobservant I am about life around me. This book is packed with interesting facts about insects, birds and animals. The question in the title is about how life in nature experiences the seasons. If one studies nature, the seasons are not clearly marked as they are on the calendar. A complex set of circumstances often has to occur for insect, bird and animal life to flourish. The seasons flow from one to the other with some flora and fauna who are early and some who are laggard. The champion season jumper is the Arctic tern who spends his time at both poles and who rarely sees the sunset.
Quote: “It was one of those splendid days when the crunch of the snowshoes and the joy of living were all anyone would ever wish.”
Quote: “Like the rest of his woodland neighbors, he had little respect for the calendar anyway.”
Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews. Ed. Malcolm Cowley.
Why read it? What can ordinary writers learn from the comments by writers on their writing? The book begins with six and one-half pages of questions the interviewers asked the writers whom they interviewed. The list of questions is of value in itself for future interviewers of writers.
Quote. F. Mauriac: “The novel has lost its purpose.”
Quote. Joyce Carey. “A novel should be an experience and convey an emotional truth rather than arguments.”
Quote. William Faulkner: “Art has no concern with peace and contentment.”
Quote. Simenon: “Readers want a novel to probe their own troubles.”
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Books and Ideas (33)
I read for ideas. Here are some of the ideas I have found in books.
Underworld. Don DeLillo.
Why read it? Novel. When I worked as a K-12 language arts supervisor, I encountered a question from a parent that I did not answer satisfactorily. She asked me, “Why is all the literature we study in the secondary schools so depressing?” I gave her the standard answer of course: even when concerned with tragedy, literature affirms life. That answer did not satisfy her. Well, this novel is another in the “Depressing School of Literature.” And yet, it affirms life. It defines the people in the “Underworld,” the bottom of the social ladder, as depressed, helpless, hopeless and having no control of their lives. It’s an attitude that puts people in the dregs of society.
Quote: “The serenity of immense design is missing from her life.”
The Western Canon. Harold Bloom.
Why read it? Steve Jobs of Apple, Inc., is widely quoted as saying that “Nobody reads anymore.” That may be an exaggeration, but I think it is probably true that not many people read serious books anymore. And maybe never did except under duress in our schools and colleges. Bloom suggests that the goal in our schools and colleges today is no longer intellectual excellence, but achieving social harmony and remedying historical injustice. Bloom explores the problem of no longer reading serious books, the books enumerated in the Western Canon, “what has been preserved out of what has been written.”
Why do people read? According to Bloom, people don’t read for “easy pleasure or to expiate social guilt, but to enlarge a solitary existence.” “Real reading is a lonely activity and does not teach anyone to become a better citizen.” And I infer from Bloom’s remarks that reading the books of the Canon is a search for ideas, the purpose of this blog.
What is Bloom saying? Literature does not exist to alter individuals or society; that the Canon displays a complex view of humanity; that people read to enlarge their lonely existence by understanding the complexity of motivation and point of view in the world, but without didacticism and moralizing.
Quote: Samuel Johnson had a passion for consciousness; wanted more life right to the end of his life.”
Quote: “[Jane] Austen’s major heroines had an inner freedom that could not be repressed.”
Quote: “Whitman tried to live as if life were a perpetual morning.”
Quote: “What are now called ‘Departments of English’ will be renamed departments of ‘Cultural Studies’ where Batman comics…theme parks, television, movies and rock [and rap and text messaging? RayS] will replace Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, and Wallace Stevens.”
What’s in a Word? Mario Pei.
Why read it? Many people love to read about words. They play daily word games in the newspaper. The stories of words and of the English language are fascinating. And books on words are just plain fun to read. Pei gives the reader a basic course in the history of the English language. He also deals with some fundamental issues: the nature of language, speech vs. writing and the role of grammar in learning language. Fascinating.
Quote: “But there is a deeper reason for preferring the cultivated language…. The same word…will carry the same meaning to all who use it…. This community of meaning leads to a community of understanding and a better possibility of effective collaboration.”
Quote: “It is an interesting fact that the critics of prescriptive grammar are its most faithful followers. They may advocate extending equality to substandard usages in theory, but they actively discriminate against them in practice.”
Quote: “Every word tells a story….”
The Writer’s Book. Helen Hull, Ed.
Why read it? An anthology of thoughts on writing—and reading—by a variety of writers. If you are interested in how real writers write, you will enjoy this book.
Quote. Pearl Buck: “People want to read about themselves, not the writer.”
Quote. Thomas Mann: “Everything great has come in spite of affliction, pain, poverty, destitution, bodily weakness, vice, passion and many other obstructions.”
Quote. John Hersey: “Novelists can make people feel as if they participated in the events of the novel.”
Underworld. Don DeLillo.
Why read it? Novel. When I worked as a K-12 language arts supervisor, I encountered a question from a parent that I did not answer satisfactorily. She asked me, “Why is all the literature we study in the secondary schools so depressing?” I gave her the standard answer of course: even when concerned with tragedy, literature affirms life. That answer did not satisfy her. Well, this novel is another in the “Depressing School of Literature.” And yet, it affirms life. It defines the people in the “Underworld,” the bottom of the social ladder, as depressed, helpless, hopeless and having no control of their lives. It’s an attitude that puts people in the dregs of society.
Quote: “The serenity of immense design is missing from her life.”
The Western Canon. Harold Bloom.
Why read it? Steve Jobs of Apple, Inc., is widely quoted as saying that “Nobody reads anymore.” That may be an exaggeration, but I think it is probably true that not many people read serious books anymore. And maybe never did except under duress in our schools and colleges. Bloom suggests that the goal in our schools and colleges today is no longer intellectual excellence, but achieving social harmony and remedying historical injustice. Bloom explores the problem of no longer reading serious books, the books enumerated in the Western Canon, “what has been preserved out of what has been written.”
Why do people read? According to Bloom, people don’t read for “easy pleasure or to expiate social guilt, but to enlarge a solitary existence.” “Real reading is a lonely activity and does not teach anyone to become a better citizen.” And I infer from Bloom’s remarks that reading the books of the Canon is a search for ideas, the purpose of this blog.
What is Bloom saying? Literature does not exist to alter individuals or society; that the Canon displays a complex view of humanity; that people read to enlarge their lonely existence by understanding the complexity of motivation and point of view in the world, but without didacticism and moralizing.
Quote: Samuel Johnson had a passion for consciousness; wanted more life right to the end of his life.”
Quote: “[Jane] Austen’s major heroines had an inner freedom that could not be repressed.”
Quote: “Whitman tried to live as if life were a perpetual morning.”
Quote: “What are now called ‘Departments of English’ will be renamed departments of ‘Cultural Studies’ where Batman comics…theme parks, television, movies and rock [and rap and text messaging? RayS] will replace Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, and Wallace Stevens.”
What’s in a Word? Mario Pei.
Why read it? Many people love to read about words. They play daily word games in the newspaper. The stories of words and of the English language are fascinating. And books on words are just plain fun to read. Pei gives the reader a basic course in the history of the English language. He also deals with some fundamental issues: the nature of language, speech vs. writing and the role of grammar in learning language. Fascinating.
Quote: “But there is a deeper reason for preferring the cultivated language…. The same word…will carry the same meaning to all who use it…. This community of meaning leads to a community of understanding and a better possibility of effective collaboration.”
Quote: “It is an interesting fact that the critics of prescriptive grammar are its most faithful followers. They may advocate extending equality to substandard usages in theory, but they actively discriminate against them in practice.”
Quote: “Every word tells a story….”
The Writer’s Book. Helen Hull, Ed.
Why read it? An anthology of thoughts on writing—and reading—by a variety of writers. If you are interested in how real writers write, you will enjoy this book.
Quote. Pearl Buck: “People want to read about themselves, not the writer.”
Quote. Thomas Mann: “Everything great has come in spite of affliction, pain, poverty, destitution, bodily weakness, vice, passion and many other obstructions.”
Quote. John Hersey: “Novelists can make people feel as if they participated in the events of the novel.”
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Books and Ideas (32)
I read for ideas. Here are some of the ideas I have found in books.
War and Peace. Leo Tolstoy.
Why read it? In War and Peace, Tolstoy alternated literary forms, using fiction to tell his story of the maturing of Pierre Bezukhov, Andre Bolkonsky and Natasha Rostova during the Napoleonic campaigns in Russia, and essays in which he discusses the ironies and absurdity of war. In other words, two battles are the essence of this novel: the personal and social battles in fiction; the military battle in essays. The story covers roughly the years between 1805 and 1820, centering on the invasion of Russia by Napoleon’s army in 1812 and the Russian resistance to the invader.
No summary can capture the scope of this novel with over five hundred characters and ideas about life and death and the military. When you have finished reading it, you have struggled with Pierre to understand and accept life; you have faced the confusion of warfare and accepted life and death with Andre Bolkonsky; you have flirted with life with Natasha and begun to realize that she must accept responsibility for her words and actions. And with Tolstoy, you have ridiculed the notion that leaders’ own personal ambitions should doom the mass of the citizens to die for such absurd causes.
Quote: “It is only by renouncing our claim to discern a purpose immediately intelligible to us, and admitting the ultimate purpose to be beyond our ken….”
Quote: “Just as in a dream everything may be unreal, incoherent, and contradictory except the feeling behind the dream.”
Wings of Morning: The Story of the Last American Bomber Shot Down Over Germany in World War II. Thomas Childers.
Why read it? This book is a remarkable piece of writing. You are truly “there” to watch these men in all of their training and their missions over Germany. Childers, an historian, uses the letters from the crew’s family to re-create vividly their lives and times. He uses the techniques of fiction, but the details are historically true. The ironies of war are dramatically presented. When I gave a copy of the book to my brother-in-law, a pilot in the Navy, he could not put it down and read it within a single evening. The book is that compelling.
Quote from a review written by Art Carey of the Philadelphia Inquirer: “His [Thomas Childers’] mother’s brother, Howard Goodner, was a dashing basketball player who won a scholarship to Western Kentucky University. He was a radio operator aboard the last U.S. bomber shot down over Germany. The telegram informing the family that he was missing in action arrived on VE Day.”
Quote from Thomas Childers, the author: “I never knew my uncle, but here I am still thinking about him and writing about him.”
The Way of All Flesh. Samuel Butler.
Why read it? Novel. Butler does well in reproducing the thoughts of a young child viewing the adult world. Through three generations, sons in the family Pontifex lived in fear of their fathers and then treated their sons in the same way. The novel is about Ernest’s progress from thinking about, but being afraid to say, what is wrong in the world, to having the freedom and ability to say/write what he is thinking. Ernest progresses from fear and dependence while growing up to independence as an adult.
An attack on the stereotypical family and the abuse of children by their parents. This abuse is both physical and emotional. Do all sons hate/dislike their fathers? Communication between father and sons is the problem. Neither understands the other. Neither know the other. What I most enjoyed about this book was Butler’s satiric comments on almost every subject.
Quote: "One great reason why clergymen’s households are generally unhappy is because the clergyman is so much at home….”
Quote: “Never learn anything until you find you have been made uncomfortable for a good long while by not knowing it; when you find that you will have occasion for this or that knowledge or foresee that you will have occasion for it shortly, the sooner you learn it the better….”
War and Peace. Leo Tolstoy.
Why read it? In War and Peace, Tolstoy alternated literary forms, using fiction to tell his story of the maturing of Pierre Bezukhov, Andre Bolkonsky and Natasha Rostova during the Napoleonic campaigns in Russia, and essays in which he discusses the ironies and absurdity of war. In other words, two battles are the essence of this novel: the personal and social battles in fiction; the military battle in essays. The story covers roughly the years between 1805 and 1820, centering on the invasion of Russia by Napoleon’s army in 1812 and the Russian resistance to the invader.
No summary can capture the scope of this novel with over five hundred characters and ideas about life and death and the military. When you have finished reading it, you have struggled with Pierre to understand and accept life; you have faced the confusion of warfare and accepted life and death with Andre Bolkonsky; you have flirted with life with Natasha and begun to realize that she must accept responsibility for her words and actions. And with Tolstoy, you have ridiculed the notion that leaders’ own personal ambitions should doom the mass of the citizens to die for such absurd causes.
Quote: “It is only by renouncing our claim to discern a purpose immediately intelligible to us, and admitting the ultimate purpose to be beyond our ken….”
Quote: “Just as in a dream everything may be unreal, incoherent, and contradictory except the feeling behind the dream.”
Wings of Morning: The Story of the Last American Bomber Shot Down Over Germany in World War II. Thomas Childers.
Why read it? This book is a remarkable piece of writing. You are truly “there” to watch these men in all of their training and their missions over Germany. Childers, an historian, uses the letters from the crew’s family to re-create vividly their lives and times. He uses the techniques of fiction, but the details are historically true. The ironies of war are dramatically presented. When I gave a copy of the book to my brother-in-law, a pilot in the Navy, he could not put it down and read it within a single evening. The book is that compelling.
Quote from a review written by Art Carey of the Philadelphia Inquirer: “His [Thomas Childers’] mother’s brother, Howard Goodner, was a dashing basketball player who won a scholarship to Western Kentucky University. He was a radio operator aboard the last U.S. bomber shot down over Germany. The telegram informing the family that he was missing in action arrived on VE Day.”
Quote from Thomas Childers, the author: “I never knew my uncle, but here I am still thinking about him and writing about him.”
The Way of All Flesh. Samuel Butler.
Why read it? Novel. Butler does well in reproducing the thoughts of a young child viewing the adult world. Through three generations, sons in the family Pontifex lived in fear of their fathers and then treated their sons in the same way. The novel is about Ernest’s progress from thinking about, but being afraid to say, what is wrong in the world, to having the freedom and ability to say/write what he is thinking. Ernest progresses from fear and dependence while growing up to independence as an adult.
An attack on the stereotypical family and the abuse of children by their parents. This abuse is both physical and emotional. Do all sons hate/dislike their fathers? Communication between father and sons is the problem. Neither understands the other. Neither know the other. What I most enjoyed about this book was Butler’s satiric comments on almost every subject.
Quote: "One great reason why clergymen’s households are generally unhappy is because the clergyman is so much at home….”
Quote: “Never learn anything until you find you have been made uncomfortable for a good long while by not knowing it; when you find that you will have occasion for this or that knowledge or foresee that you will have occasion for it shortly, the sooner you learn it the better….”
Monday, October 27, 2008
Books and Ideas (31)
I read for ideas. Here are some of the ideas I have found in books.
V Was for Victory: Politics and American Culture During WWII. John Morton Blum.
Why read it? Politics did not disappear in World War II. Blum discusses how war was sold to Americans. Propaganda was used to produce popular images of our own fighting men, or allies and the enemy. Other topics: The return of prosperity after the long depression and its effect on consumers, business and government. How we treated Italians and Italian-Americans, Japanese and Japanese-Americans and our attitude toward Jewish refugees. The growth of black self-awareness and its results. Party politics of the time, with special attention to Wendell Wilkie and Henry A. Wallace as well as to Franklin Roosevelt. The coming of victory and what it portended for the nation and the world. Blum uses generous helpings of irony.
Quote: “Little boxes on the hillside,/ Little boxes made of ticky tacky,/ Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes all the same;/ There’s a green one and a pink one/ and a blue one and a yellow one/ And they’re all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.” Malvina Reynolds: “Little Boxes and Other Handmade Songs.”
Walden, Or, Life in the Woods. Henry David Thoreau.
Why read it? Walden is a “you-are-there” book. Want a period of solitude in your life? Read Walden. You not only read about Thoreau’s living alone in a cabin at Walden Pond, outside Concord, Massachusetts, from 1845 to 1847, you live it with him. You actually experience Thoreau’s solitude This book I have read several times, usually when I need a break from the pace of modern American living. Each time I come away relaxed and determined to live my life as intensely as did Thoreau.
Quote: “I learned this, at least, by my experiment, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected….”
Quote: “Things do not change, we change.”
Walden Two. BF Skinner.
Why read it? The message of the book: organize society using positive reinforcement. I’ve read the book, but I still do not understand entirely what ‘positive reinforcement’ means in a practical way. Frazier, the founder of Walden Two, does give examples, but I’m not sure they are very significant. One thing it does mean: don’t use punishment or negative reinforcement. How would I translate a situation in which I instinctively wanted to use negative reinforcement into positive reinforcement? I’ve done it in small ways with the dogs. But what about people?
Frazier, the founder of Walden Two is very good at describing what is wrong with society. Much of what he describes is full of half-truths, but they are half true as well as half wrong: part of the problem is true.
Quote: Education. "The fixed education represented by a diploma is a bit of conspicuous waste which has no place in Walden Two. We don’t attach an economic or honorific value to education. It has its own value or none at all.”
Quote: Heaven: “Could you really be happy in a static world, no matter how satisfying it might be in other respects? We must never be free of that feverish urge to push forward which is the saving grace of mankind.”
Watchers at the Pond. Franklin Russell.
Why read it? This book describes the changes in the pond during the cycle of the seasons. Gerald Durrell in the introduction says, “This book will show you that the world you live in is a rich and wonderful place and it will show you how little we know about it.”
Quote: “The lightning burned through the air and created a huge vacuum, into which the vapor-packed air hurtled…created an explosion that rocked the earth, and the concussion fled along the line of the lightning strike and ended with a crackle far beyond the marsh.”
Quote: “What makes the sky blue? Each space of air the size of a robin’s egg contained more than a million of these particles, and they were filters that reduced the sun’s heat and cut out the reds, violets and greens of light from space, allowing only the dominant color of blue to reach the pond.”
V Was for Victory: Politics and American Culture During WWII. John Morton Blum.
Why read it? Politics did not disappear in World War II. Blum discusses how war was sold to Americans. Propaganda was used to produce popular images of our own fighting men, or allies and the enemy. Other topics: The return of prosperity after the long depression and its effect on consumers, business and government. How we treated Italians and Italian-Americans, Japanese and Japanese-Americans and our attitude toward Jewish refugees. The growth of black self-awareness and its results. Party politics of the time, with special attention to Wendell Wilkie and Henry A. Wallace as well as to Franklin Roosevelt. The coming of victory and what it portended for the nation and the world. Blum uses generous helpings of irony.
Quote: “Little boxes on the hillside,/ Little boxes made of ticky tacky,/ Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes all the same;/ There’s a green one and a pink one/ and a blue one and a yellow one/ And they’re all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.” Malvina Reynolds: “Little Boxes and Other Handmade Songs.”
Walden, Or, Life in the Woods. Henry David Thoreau.
Why read it? Walden is a “you-are-there” book. Want a period of solitude in your life? Read Walden. You not only read about Thoreau’s living alone in a cabin at Walden Pond, outside Concord, Massachusetts, from 1845 to 1847, you live it with him. You actually experience Thoreau’s solitude This book I have read several times, usually when I need a break from the pace of modern American living. Each time I come away relaxed and determined to live my life as intensely as did Thoreau.
Quote: “I learned this, at least, by my experiment, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected….”
Quote: “Things do not change, we change.”
Walden Two. BF Skinner.
Why read it? The message of the book: organize society using positive reinforcement. I’ve read the book, but I still do not understand entirely what ‘positive reinforcement’ means in a practical way. Frazier, the founder of Walden Two, does give examples, but I’m not sure they are very significant. One thing it does mean: don’t use punishment or negative reinforcement. How would I translate a situation in which I instinctively wanted to use negative reinforcement into positive reinforcement? I’ve done it in small ways with the dogs. But what about people?
Frazier, the founder of Walden Two is very good at describing what is wrong with society. Much of what he describes is full of half-truths, but they are half true as well as half wrong: part of the problem is true.
Quote: Education. "The fixed education represented by a diploma is a bit of conspicuous waste which has no place in Walden Two. We don’t attach an economic or honorific value to education. It has its own value or none at all.”
Quote: Heaven: “Could you really be happy in a static world, no matter how satisfying it might be in other respects? We must never be free of that feverish urge to push forward which is the saving grace of mankind.”
Watchers at the Pond. Franklin Russell.
Why read it? This book describes the changes in the pond during the cycle of the seasons. Gerald Durrell in the introduction says, “This book will show you that the world you live in is a rich and wonderful place and it will show you how little we know about it.”
Quote: “The lightning burned through the air and created a huge vacuum, into which the vapor-packed air hurtled…created an explosion that rocked the earth, and the concussion fled along the line of the lightning strike and ended with a crackle far beyond the marsh.”
Quote: “What makes the sky blue? Each space of air the size of a robin’s egg contained more than a million of these particles, and they were filters that reduced the sun’s heat and cut out the reds, violets and greens of light from space, allowing only the dominant color of blue to reach the pond.”
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Books and Ideas (30)
I read for ideas. Here are some of the ideas I have found in books.
Underworld. Don DeLillo.
Why read it? Novel. When I worked as a K-12 language arts supervisor, I encountered a question from a parent that I did not answer satisfactorily. She asked me, “Why is all the literature we study in the secondary schools so depressing?” I gave her the standard answer of course: even when concerned with tragedy, literature affirms life. That answer did not satisfy her. Well, this novel is another in the “Depressing School of Literature.” And yet, it affirms life. It defines the people in the “Underworld,” the bottom of the social ladder, as depressed, helpless, hopeless and having no control of their lives. Is it an attitude that puts people in the dregs of society?
Quote: “The serenity of immense design is missing from her life.”
The Universe and Dr. Einstein. Lincoln Barnett.
Why read it? Haven’t you always wondered about what Einstein said concerning the universe? Well, after reading this book, you probably won’t still be able to talk about it at cocktail parties, but Barnett does shed light on Einstein’s ideas. And after you have read even these highlights, you will be struck again with the wonder of the universe in which we live and the intelligence of the one who created it.
Quote: “In the Einstein universe there are no straight lines, there are only great circles…. Like most of the concepts of modern science, Einstein’s finite spherical universe cannot be visualized…. Its properties can be described mathematically.”
The World of Washington Irving. Van Wyck Brooks.
Why read it? To remind Americans of the struggle to define America, whether it would become just another imitation of a European state, or a country in which the people are responsible for their government. To remind Americans of the foundation for the American way of life. The period just beyond the “Declaration of Independence,” the Revolutionary War and the Constitution, 1800 to 1840. A new kind of history. Its title is deceptive, yet literal. The book is really about the WORLD of Washington Irving, rather than focusing on Irving himself. This book is about many people of Irving’s time—writers, statesmen, naturalists, explorers and painters—who helped to open the American continent and define the government of America.
Quote: Thomas Paine in Common Sense: “…proclaimed that the cause of America was the cause of mankind.” Paine in The Rights of Man, attacked the assumptions of hereditary government.” “ ‘Thomas Paine,’ Joel Barlow had prophesied, ‘…the Americans would have forgotten how much they owed to Paine and would take him for an atheist and a drunkard.’ Indeed he was taken for little or nothing else. In these fifteen years the mind of the country had changed in many ways, and he might have been another Rip van Winkle.” “…the bustling new commercial world cared little for the ideas of ’76.” “Thus, unhonored, lived the man of whom Benjamin Franklin had said that, while others could rule and many could fight, ‘only Paine could write for us.’ ”
Utopia. Sir Thomas More.
Why read it? One of the seminal books in the history of literature. “Utopia” is from the Greek, ou, “not,” and topos, “a place,” or “nowhere.” Written in two books in Latin. Book One presents analysis of contemporary social, economic, penal and moral ills in England. Book Two is a narrative describing Utopia, a country run according to the ideals of the English humanists, where poverty, crime, injustice and other ills do not exist.
Thomas More says that private property is the root of pride, acquisitiveness and the destruction of human brotherhood. Abolish private property and you eliminate the basic condition that generates pride and its various forms of violence, hatred, injustice, oppression and war.
A provocative book—a practical society regulated by reason. What strikes a harsh chord is the lack of emphasis on the beauty of individuality, originality and emotion. Everything is too ordered and the instinct in man for the infinite, in striving for which he reaches his greatest heights—and inevitably his destruction—is completely squelched.
Quote: "I have promised to tell you of their [Utopia’s] practices, not defend them.”
Underworld. Don DeLillo.
Why read it? Novel. When I worked as a K-12 language arts supervisor, I encountered a question from a parent that I did not answer satisfactorily. She asked me, “Why is all the literature we study in the secondary schools so depressing?” I gave her the standard answer of course: even when concerned with tragedy, literature affirms life. That answer did not satisfy her. Well, this novel is another in the “Depressing School of Literature.” And yet, it affirms life. It defines the people in the “Underworld,” the bottom of the social ladder, as depressed, helpless, hopeless and having no control of their lives. Is it an attitude that puts people in the dregs of society?
Quote: “The serenity of immense design is missing from her life.”
The Universe and Dr. Einstein. Lincoln Barnett.
Why read it? Haven’t you always wondered about what Einstein said concerning the universe? Well, after reading this book, you probably won’t still be able to talk about it at cocktail parties, but Barnett does shed light on Einstein’s ideas. And after you have read even these highlights, you will be struck again with the wonder of the universe in which we live and the intelligence of the one who created it.
Quote: “In the Einstein universe there are no straight lines, there are only great circles…. Like most of the concepts of modern science, Einstein’s finite spherical universe cannot be visualized…. Its properties can be described mathematically.”
The World of Washington Irving. Van Wyck Brooks.
Why read it? To remind Americans of the struggle to define America, whether it would become just another imitation of a European state, or a country in which the people are responsible for their government. To remind Americans of the foundation for the American way of life. The period just beyond the “Declaration of Independence,” the Revolutionary War and the Constitution, 1800 to 1840. A new kind of history. Its title is deceptive, yet literal. The book is really about the WORLD of Washington Irving, rather than focusing on Irving himself. This book is about many people of Irving’s time—writers, statesmen, naturalists, explorers and painters—who helped to open the American continent and define the government of America.
Quote: Thomas Paine in Common Sense: “…proclaimed that the cause of America was the cause of mankind.” Paine in The Rights of Man, attacked the assumptions of hereditary government.” “ ‘Thomas Paine,’ Joel Barlow had prophesied, ‘…the Americans would have forgotten how much they owed to Paine and would take him for an atheist and a drunkard.’ Indeed he was taken for little or nothing else. In these fifteen years the mind of the country had changed in many ways, and he might have been another Rip van Winkle.” “…the bustling new commercial world cared little for the ideas of ’76.” “Thus, unhonored, lived the man of whom Benjamin Franklin had said that, while others could rule and many could fight, ‘only Paine could write for us.’ ”
Utopia. Sir Thomas More.
Why read it? One of the seminal books in the history of literature. “Utopia” is from the Greek, ou, “not,” and topos, “a place,” or “nowhere.” Written in two books in Latin. Book One presents analysis of contemporary social, economic, penal and moral ills in England. Book Two is a narrative describing Utopia, a country run according to the ideals of the English humanists, where poverty, crime, injustice and other ills do not exist.
Thomas More says that private property is the root of pride, acquisitiveness and the destruction of human brotherhood. Abolish private property and you eliminate the basic condition that generates pride and its various forms of violence, hatred, injustice, oppression and war.
A provocative book—a practical society regulated by reason. What strikes a harsh chord is the lack of emphasis on the beauty of individuality, originality and emotion. Everything is too ordered and the instinct in man for the infinite, in striving for which he reaches his greatest heights—and inevitably his destruction—is completely squelched.
Quote: "I have promised to tell you of their [Utopia’s] practices, not defend them.”
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Books and Ideas (29)
I read for ideas. Here are some of the ideas I have found in books.
Tales of the South Pacific. James Michener.
Why read it? What won WWII was superior planning and organizing. Series of short stories based on incidents experienced by the author when he served in the South Pacific during WWII. The theme is waiting, the endless waiting, to see action. The waiting occurred because the islands leading toward the Japanese mainland had to be staffed and prepared for the string of attacks on islands nearer the Japanese mainland. In fact, the planning, including the medical planning in anticipation of certain types of wounds, is absolutely amazing. Of course, the stories of men and women at war are the focus of the book.
Memento Mori. Muriel Spark.
Why read it? If, as a young person, you think old people (over 70) live out their old age serenely, reflecting comfortably on their positive experiences over the years, this novel depicts a very different existence—fretful, self-absorbed, worried about trivial circumstances, hyper-critical of other old people, noting their mental instability, reflecting on affairs and embarrassments during the years, using their wills to retain influence over people looking for their inheritance, problems with their bladders, taking pills, no longer valued for their knowledge and as important individuals, wildly suspicious and swiftly dying off because of medical and other causes, including violence and car collisions. Spark writes with a dead-pan, expression as she states matter-of-factly what the characters think, say and do. The result is hilarious—and irreverent—and true to life.
Quote: “And if the book does nothing else, it demonstrates how hard it is to approach tranquility at the end of a long life marked by the deceits, subterfuges and willful departures from ordinary decency that plague all men at all times.”
Bring Out Your Dead: The great Plague of Yellow Fever in Philadelphia in 1793. J. H. Powell.
Why read it? The anatomy of a crisis. How this particular crisis—the yellow-fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793—was dealt with. It was not resolved by human effort, but by nature’s change of seasons, the frost that killed the real culprit, the mosquito. But to some degree heroic people, known and unknown, did alleviate the crisis.
The first need was firm leadership, in this case, the mayor of Philadelphia, Matthew Clarkson who did not desert his duties or the city. Second was the need for organization—to identify the many complicated problems within the crisis and then to set out to deal with them in an organized and efficient manner, from picking up and burying the dead to managing a hospital, Bush Hill, away from the city. The need to deal with the many excuses or obstacles to getting things done. Ultimately, the greatest need was to give hope and confidence to both victims and survivors. How to deal with panic.
Quote: “There are heroisms unrecorded, great moments of beauty and courage that have left no trace, unknowable human experiences that could teach wisdom and understanding…. But history is always full of gaps.”
Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle. Washington Irving.
Why read it? The years are 1802 and 1803 in America. The commentator is Jonathan Oldstyle, an older man, a conservative, someone who does not like innovation on old habits. He sends letters to the editor, commenting on the fashions of the young, on the foppishness of young men, on the habits of playgoers, most of which modern readers will recognize in the moviewplexes of today—except for cell phones—and on the contemporary methods of dueling when pistols replaced swords, and other modes of dueling (like Abraham Lincoln’s use of cow flop), designed to assure that no one is seriously hurt. It’s all in good fun.
Quote: “Nothing is more intolerable to an old person than innovation on old habits.”
Tales of the South Pacific. James Michener.
Why read it? What won WWII was superior planning and organizing. Series of short stories based on incidents experienced by the author when he served in the South Pacific during WWII. The theme is waiting, the endless waiting, to see action. The waiting occurred because the islands leading toward the Japanese mainland had to be staffed and prepared for the string of attacks on islands nearer the Japanese mainland. In fact, the planning, including the medical planning in anticipation of certain types of wounds, is absolutely amazing. Of course, the stories of men and women at war are the focus of the book.
Memento Mori. Muriel Spark.
Why read it? If, as a young person, you think old people (over 70) live out their old age serenely, reflecting comfortably on their positive experiences over the years, this novel depicts a very different existence—fretful, self-absorbed, worried about trivial circumstances, hyper-critical of other old people, noting their mental instability, reflecting on affairs and embarrassments during the years, using their wills to retain influence over people looking for their inheritance, problems with their bladders, taking pills, no longer valued for their knowledge and as important individuals, wildly suspicious and swiftly dying off because of medical and other causes, including violence and car collisions. Spark writes with a dead-pan, expression as she states matter-of-factly what the characters think, say and do. The result is hilarious—and irreverent—and true to life.
Quote: “And if the book does nothing else, it demonstrates how hard it is to approach tranquility at the end of a long life marked by the deceits, subterfuges and willful departures from ordinary decency that plague all men at all times.”
Bring Out Your Dead: The great Plague of Yellow Fever in Philadelphia in 1793. J. H. Powell.
Why read it? The anatomy of a crisis. How this particular crisis—the yellow-fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793—was dealt with. It was not resolved by human effort, but by nature’s change of seasons, the frost that killed the real culprit, the mosquito. But to some degree heroic people, known and unknown, did alleviate the crisis.
The first need was firm leadership, in this case, the mayor of Philadelphia, Matthew Clarkson who did not desert his duties or the city. Second was the need for organization—to identify the many complicated problems within the crisis and then to set out to deal with them in an organized and efficient manner, from picking up and burying the dead to managing a hospital, Bush Hill, away from the city. The need to deal with the many excuses or obstacles to getting things done. Ultimately, the greatest need was to give hope and confidence to both victims and survivors. How to deal with panic.
Quote: “There are heroisms unrecorded, great moments of beauty and courage that have left no trace, unknowable human experiences that could teach wisdom and understanding…. But history is always full of gaps.”
Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle. Washington Irving.
Why read it? The years are 1802 and 1803 in America. The commentator is Jonathan Oldstyle, an older man, a conservative, someone who does not like innovation on old habits. He sends letters to the editor, commenting on the fashions of the young, on the foppishness of young men, on the habits of playgoers, most of which modern readers will recognize in the moviewplexes of today—except for cell phones—and on the contemporary methods of dueling when pistols replaced swords, and other modes of dueling (like Abraham Lincoln’s use of cow flop), designed to assure that no one is seriously hurt. It’s all in good fun.
Quote: “Nothing is more intolerable to an old person than innovation on old habits.”
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Books and Ideas (28)
I read for ideas. Here are some of the ideas I have found in books.
Harry S. Truman. Margaret Truman.
Why read it? Some of the highlight events of Truman’s presidency were his sudden assumption to the presidency, negotiations with Churchill and Stalin, the dropping of the atomic bomb, the shift from a war-time to a peace-time economy, the Marshall Plan, the Berlin blockade, Palestine, the Korean War and the dismissal of MacArthur. While these facts are carefully documented in Truman's own memoirs, Margaret Truman, his daughter, shows the human side of the President, his feelings under the pressure of events during his presidency. They also provide a good summary of the events and the principal people involved in them. She shows his sense of humor, his pride in his family, and his knowledge of history that often served to guide his actions. Margaret’s biography of her father is very well written.
Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith. Jon Krakauer.
Why read it? A study in extremism. Mormons believe that they can have a close communication with God and that God can speak personally to them. If God says to kill someone, they are required to do it.
While this book is primarily about Mormon fundamentalists (read believers in polygamy, which mainstream Mormons do not accept today), it is also a history of Mormonism. Hard to believe that people would be credulous enough to accept Joseph Smith’s account of the Angel Moroni and the golden plates which he translated from Egyptian hieroglyphics by means of magic glasses and a magic stone. While the book suggests some reasons for the appeal of Mormonism—the close relationship with God, the expectation of the Second Coming of Christ, the clear statement of what is good and what is evil, the desire to submit to authority, thus removing the uncertainty and discomfort of having to make individual decisions—I still fail to understand why people are attracted to the religion. And they are. Along with Islam, it is one of the fastest growing world religions. Like Islam’s Koran, Mormon scripture purports to be the actual word of God.
Up the Organization: How to Stop the Corporation from Stifling People and Strangling Profits. Robert Townsend (of Avis’s “We’re number two. We try harder,” Fame).
Why read it? A common-sense (to me) book about how to help organizations succeed by treating employees as people, not “personnel.” Townsend’s theme is getting things done through organizations. The best leader is the one who, when people are successful, say “We did it” and do not know they have been led. Decisions are made by one person who is in charge, but the leadership can be transferred from one person to another, depending on the situation, the types of problems and the decisions that have to be made. The model for organizations is a round table. Stop using the organizational system of the Catholic Church and the Roman legions.
Three Cups of Tea. Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.
Why read it? Do you think every Muslim is a potential terrorist? Then you need to read this book. You need to become familiar with the moderate Muslims, the Muslims who live in the mountains of Pakistan, impoverished, illiterate people who don’t have any chance for an education, except for the schools for boys, the madrassas, schools that teach terrorism. Mortenson wants to build schools for children in Pakistan, particularly for girls. He wants to teach them that there are good reasons to live rather than to die to go to Muslim heaven.
Quote: “The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger. The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share a cup of tea, you become family, and for our family, we are prepared to do anything, even die.”
Harry S. Truman. Margaret Truman.
Why read it? Some of the highlight events of Truman’s presidency were his sudden assumption to the presidency, negotiations with Churchill and Stalin, the dropping of the atomic bomb, the shift from a war-time to a peace-time economy, the Marshall Plan, the Berlin blockade, Palestine, the Korean War and the dismissal of MacArthur. While these facts are carefully documented in Truman's own memoirs, Margaret Truman, his daughter, shows the human side of the President, his feelings under the pressure of events during his presidency. They also provide a good summary of the events and the principal people involved in them. She shows his sense of humor, his pride in his family, and his knowledge of history that often served to guide his actions. Margaret’s biography of her father is very well written.
Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith. Jon Krakauer.
Why read it? A study in extremism. Mormons believe that they can have a close communication with God and that God can speak personally to them. If God says to kill someone, they are required to do it.
While this book is primarily about Mormon fundamentalists (read believers in polygamy, which mainstream Mormons do not accept today), it is also a history of Mormonism. Hard to believe that people would be credulous enough to accept Joseph Smith’s account of the Angel Moroni and the golden plates which he translated from Egyptian hieroglyphics by means of magic glasses and a magic stone. While the book suggests some reasons for the appeal of Mormonism—the close relationship with God, the expectation of the Second Coming of Christ, the clear statement of what is good and what is evil, the desire to submit to authority, thus removing the uncertainty and discomfort of having to make individual decisions—I still fail to understand why people are attracted to the religion. And they are. Along with Islam, it is one of the fastest growing world religions. Like Islam’s Koran, Mormon scripture purports to be the actual word of God.
Up the Organization: How to Stop the Corporation from Stifling People and Strangling Profits. Robert Townsend (of Avis’s “We’re number two. We try harder,” Fame).
Why read it? A common-sense (to me) book about how to help organizations succeed by treating employees as people, not “personnel.” Townsend’s theme is getting things done through organizations. The best leader is the one who, when people are successful, say “We did it” and do not know they have been led. Decisions are made by one person who is in charge, but the leadership can be transferred from one person to another, depending on the situation, the types of problems and the decisions that have to be made. The model for organizations is a round table. Stop using the organizational system of the Catholic Church and the Roman legions.
Three Cups of Tea. Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.
Why read it? Do you think every Muslim is a potential terrorist? Then you need to read this book. You need to become familiar with the moderate Muslims, the Muslims who live in the mountains of Pakistan, impoverished, illiterate people who don’t have any chance for an education, except for the schools for boys, the madrassas, schools that teach terrorism. Mortenson wants to build schools for children in Pakistan, particularly for girls. He wants to teach them that there are good reasons to live rather than to die to go to Muslim heaven.
Quote: “The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger. The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share a cup of tea, you become family, and for our family, we are prepared to do anything, even die.”
Monday, October 20, 2008
Books and Ideas (27)
I read for ideas. Here are some of the ideas I have found in books.
Tales and Sketches. Parts One, Two, Three and Four. Nathaniel Hawthorne. (Continued)
“The Procession of Life.” Which type of person are you? “A man finds his rank according to the spirit of his crime. The manufactory where the demon of machinery annihilates the human soul, and the cotton-field where God’s image becomes a beast of burden. Those who exude the heavenliness of spirit, even though they have produced no deeds, but have encouraged others to produce them, are benefactors of mankind. Those who have never found their proper place in the world. Those who have committed some great mistake in life. The dreamer, who all his life long, has cherished the idea that he was peculiarly apt for something, but never could determine what it was.”
“The Celestial Railroad.” Idea is based on Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Names of characters match their chief characteristics, “Mr. Take-It-Easy,” etc. “I heard such bad accounts [of the Celestial City]…no business doing—no fun going on—nothing to drink, and no smoking allowed—and a thrumming of church-music from morning till night. At the end of the valley, as John Bunyan mentions, is a cavern, where, in his days, dwelt two cruel giants, Pope and Pagan, who had strewn the ground about their residence with the bones of slaughtered pilgrims. Vanity Fair: If a customer wished to renew his stock of youth, the dealers offered him a set of false teeth and an auburn wig; if he demanded peace of mind, they recommended opium or a brandy bottle.”
“Buds and Bird-Voices.” “All through the winter, too, the willow’s yellow twigs give it a sunny aspect, which is not without a cheering influence, even in the grayest and gloomiest day; beneath a clouded sky, it faithfully remembers the sunshine.” “The black birds are the noisiest of all our feathered citizens…congregate in contiguous tree-tops and vociferate with all the clamor and confusion of a turbulent political meeting.” “Will the world ever be so decayed that spring may not renew its greenness? Summer works in the present, and thinks not of the future; autumn is a rich conservative; winter has utterly lost its faith, and clings tremulously to the remembrance of what has been; but spring with its outgushing life….”
“Little Daffydowndilly.” “Daffydowndilly was so called because in his nature he resembled a flower…and loved to do only what was beautiful and agreeable, and took no delight in labor of any kind. …put under the care of this ugly-visaged schoolmaster, who never gave him any apples or cakes, and seemed to think that little boys were created only to get lessons.”
“Fire Worship.” “It is a great revolution in social and domestic life…this almost universal exchange of the open fireplace for the cheerless and ungenial stove. In one way or another, here and there, and all around us, the inventions of mankind are fast blotting the picturesque, the poetic and the beautiful out of human life. Afar, the wayfarer discerns the flickering flame, as it dances upon the windows, and hails it as a beacon-light of humanity, reminding him, in his cold and lonely path, that the world is not all snow, and solitude, and desolation. It is my belief that social intercourse cannot long continue what it has been, now that we have subtracted from it so important and vivifying an element as firelight. Fight for your hearths? There will be none throughout the land; fight for your stoves? not I, in faith.”
“A Good Man’s Miracle.” “In every good action there is a divine quality, which does not end with the completion of that particular deed, but goes on to bring forth good works in an infinite series.”
“The Intelligence Office.” “Old people wished for the delights of youth; a fop, for a fashionable coat; an idle reader, for a new novel; a versifier, for a rhyme to some stubborn word; a painter, for Titians’s secret of coloring; a prince for a cottage; a republican, for a kingdom and a palace; a libertine, for his neighbor’s wife…a poor man, for a crust of bread.”
Tales and Sketches. Parts One, Two, Three and Four. Nathaniel Hawthorne. (Continued)
“The Procession of Life.” Which type of person are you? “A man finds his rank according to the spirit of his crime. The manufactory where the demon of machinery annihilates the human soul, and the cotton-field where God’s image becomes a beast of burden. Those who exude the heavenliness of spirit, even though they have produced no deeds, but have encouraged others to produce them, are benefactors of mankind. Those who have never found their proper place in the world. Those who have committed some great mistake in life. The dreamer, who all his life long, has cherished the idea that he was peculiarly apt for something, but never could determine what it was.”
“The Celestial Railroad.” Idea is based on Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Names of characters match their chief characteristics, “Mr. Take-It-Easy,” etc. “I heard such bad accounts [of the Celestial City]…no business doing—no fun going on—nothing to drink, and no smoking allowed—and a thrumming of church-music from morning till night. At the end of the valley, as John Bunyan mentions, is a cavern, where, in his days, dwelt two cruel giants, Pope and Pagan, who had strewn the ground about their residence with the bones of slaughtered pilgrims. Vanity Fair: If a customer wished to renew his stock of youth, the dealers offered him a set of false teeth and an auburn wig; if he demanded peace of mind, they recommended opium or a brandy bottle.”
“Buds and Bird-Voices.” “All through the winter, too, the willow’s yellow twigs give it a sunny aspect, which is not without a cheering influence, even in the grayest and gloomiest day; beneath a clouded sky, it faithfully remembers the sunshine.” “The black birds are the noisiest of all our feathered citizens…congregate in contiguous tree-tops and vociferate with all the clamor and confusion of a turbulent political meeting.” “Will the world ever be so decayed that spring may not renew its greenness? Summer works in the present, and thinks not of the future; autumn is a rich conservative; winter has utterly lost its faith, and clings tremulously to the remembrance of what has been; but spring with its outgushing life….”
“Little Daffydowndilly.” “Daffydowndilly was so called because in his nature he resembled a flower…and loved to do only what was beautiful and agreeable, and took no delight in labor of any kind. …put under the care of this ugly-visaged schoolmaster, who never gave him any apples or cakes, and seemed to think that little boys were created only to get lessons.”
“Fire Worship.” “It is a great revolution in social and domestic life…this almost universal exchange of the open fireplace for the cheerless and ungenial stove. In one way or another, here and there, and all around us, the inventions of mankind are fast blotting the picturesque, the poetic and the beautiful out of human life. Afar, the wayfarer discerns the flickering flame, as it dances upon the windows, and hails it as a beacon-light of humanity, reminding him, in his cold and lonely path, that the world is not all snow, and solitude, and desolation. It is my belief that social intercourse cannot long continue what it has been, now that we have subtracted from it so important and vivifying an element as firelight. Fight for your hearths? There will be none throughout the land; fight for your stoves? not I, in faith.”
“A Good Man’s Miracle.” “In every good action there is a divine quality, which does not end with the completion of that particular deed, but goes on to bring forth good works in an infinite series.”
“The Intelligence Office.” “Old people wished for the delights of youth; a fop, for a fashionable coat; an idle reader, for a new novel; a versifier, for a rhyme to some stubborn word; a painter, for Titians’s secret of coloring; a prince for a cottage; a republican, for a kingdom and a palace; a libertine, for his neighbor’s wife…a poor man, for a crust of bread.”
Friday, October 17, 2008
Books and Ideas (26)
I read for ideas. Here are some of the ideas I have found in books.
Tales and Sketches. Parts One, Two, Three and Four. Nathaniel Hawthorne. (Continued)
“The Snow-Image.” “The Snow-image seemed, in fact, not so much to be made by the children, as to grow up under their hands, while they were playing and prattling about it. ‘Mama will see how very beautiful she is, but Papa will say, ‘Tush—Nonsense! Come in out of the cold.’ ”
“Feathertop: A Moralized Legend.” “The good woman [Mother Rigby] had risen thus early, (for as yet, it was scarcely sunrise) in order to set about making a scarecrow, which she intended to put in the middle of her corn patch…was determined…to contrive as lifelike a scarecrow as ever was seen. …settled, therefore, in her own mind, that the scarecrow should represent a fine gentleman of the period…. And many a fine gentleman has a pumpkin-head as well as my scarecrow. What if I should let him take his chance among the other men of straw and empty fellows who go bustling about the world? Thou shalt say a thousand things, and saying them a thousand times over, thou shalt still have said nothing! My poor, dear, pretty Feathertop! There are thousands upon thousands of coxcombs and charlatans in the world, made up of just such a jumble of worn-out, forgotten, and good-for-nothing trash, as he was; yet they live in fair repute, and never see themselves for what they are; and why should my poor puppet be the only one to know himself and perish for it.”
Preface to The Old Manse. “It was awful to reflect how many sermons must have been written there [the study]. Their [Indian arrowheads’] great charm consists in this rudeness, and in the individuality of each article, so different from the productions of civilized machinery, which shapes everything on one pattern. There is so much individuality of character, too, among apple trees…the variety of grotesque shapes, into which apple-trees contort themselves…. A dissertation on the Book of Job—which only Job himself could had patience to read. How early in the summer, too, the prophecy of autumn comes! …earlier in some years than in others…sometimes, even in the first weeks of July. New truth being as heady as new wine. For myself, the book will always retain one charm, as reminding me of the river, with its delightful solitudes, and of the avenue, the garden and the orchard, and especially the dear old Manse, with the little study on its western side, and the sunshine glimmering through the willow-branches while I wrote.”
Preface to Twice-Told Tales. “He [the author] had no incitement to literary effort in a reasonable prospect of reputation or profit; nothing but the pleasure itself of composition. The book, if you would see anything in it, requires to be read in the clear, brown twilight atmosphere in which it was written; if opened in the sunshine, it is apt to look exceedingly like a volume of blank pages. They are the memorials of very tranquil and not unhappy years…failed, it is true…in winning an extensive popularity.”
Preface to “The Snow-Image.” “In youth, men are apt to write more wisely than they really know or feel; and the remainder of life may be not idly spent in realizing and convincing themselves of the wisdom which they uttered long ago.”
“Egotism, or, the Bosom-Serpent.” A man feels as if a serpent is eating at his entrails. “ ‘It gnaws me! It gnaws me!’ Thus, making his own actual serpent—if a serpent there actually was in his bosom—the type of each man’s fatal error, or hoarded sin, or unquiet conscience, and striking his sting so unremorsefuly into the sorest spot; we may well imagine that Roderick became the pest of the city. Could I, for one instant, forget myself, the serpent might not abide within me; it is my diseased self-contemplation that has engendered and nourished him.”
Tales and Sketches. Parts One, Two, Three and Four. Nathaniel Hawthorne. (Continued)
“The Snow-Image.” “The Snow-image seemed, in fact, not so much to be made by the children, as to grow up under their hands, while they were playing and prattling about it. ‘Mama will see how very beautiful she is, but Papa will say, ‘Tush—Nonsense! Come in out of the cold.’ ”
“Feathertop: A Moralized Legend.” “The good woman [Mother Rigby] had risen thus early, (for as yet, it was scarcely sunrise) in order to set about making a scarecrow, which she intended to put in the middle of her corn patch…was determined…to contrive as lifelike a scarecrow as ever was seen. …settled, therefore, in her own mind, that the scarecrow should represent a fine gentleman of the period…. And many a fine gentleman has a pumpkin-head as well as my scarecrow. What if I should let him take his chance among the other men of straw and empty fellows who go bustling about the world? Thou shalt say a thousand things, and saying them a thousand times over, thou shalt still have said nothing! My poor, dear, pretty Feathertop! There are thousands upon thousands of coxcombs and charlatans in the world, made up of just such a jumble of worn-out, forgotten, and good-for-nothing trash, as he was; yet they live in fair repute, and never see themselves for what they are; and why should my poor puppet be the only one to know himself and perish for it.”
Preface to The Old Manse. “It was awful to reflect how many sermons must have been written there [the study]. Their [Indian arrowheads’] great charm consists in this rudeness, and in the individuality of each article, so different from the productions of civilized machinery, which shapes everything on one pattern. There is so much individuality of character, too, among apple trees…the variety of grotesque shapes, into which apple-trees contort themselves…. A dissertation on the Book of Job—which only Job himself could had patience to read. How early in the summer, too, the prophecy of autumn comes! …earlier in some years than in others…sometimes, even in the first weeks of July. New truth being as heady as new wine. For myself, the book will always retain one charm, as reminding me of the river, with its delightful solitudes, and of the avenue, the garden and the orchard, and especially the dear old Manse, with the little study on its western side, and the sunshine glimmering through the willow-branches while I wrote.”
Preface to Twice-Told Tales. “He [the author] had no incitement to literary effort in a reasonable prospect of reputation or profit; nothing but the pleasure itself of composition. The book, if you would see anything in it, requires to be read in the clear, brown twilight atmosphere in which it was written; if opened in the sunshine, it is apt to look exceedingly like a volume of blank pages. They are the memorials of very tranquil and not unhappy years…failed, it is true…in winning an extensive popularity.”
Preface to “The Snow-Image.” “In youth, men are apt to write more wisely than they really know or feel; and the remainder of life may be not idly spent in realizing and convincing themselves of the wisdom which they uttered long ago.”
“Egotism, or, the Bosom-Serpent.” A man feels as if a serpent is eating at his entrails. “ ‘It gnaws me! It gnaws me!’ Thus, making his own actual serpent—if a serpent there actually was in his bosom—the type of each man’s fatal error, or hoarded sin, or unquiet conscience, and striking his sting so unremorsefuly into the sorest spot; we may well imagine that Roderick became the pest of the city. Could I, for one instant, forget myself, the serpent might not abide within me; it is my diseased self-contemplation that has engendered and nourished him.”
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Books and Ideas (25)
I read for ideas. Here are some of the ideas I have found in books.
Tales and Sketches. Parts One, Two, Three and Four. Nathaniel Hawthorne. (Continued)
“Drowne’s Wooden Image.” “On the supposition that in every human spirit there is imagination, sensibility, creative power, genius, which according to circumstances, may either be developed in this world, or shrouded in a mask of dullness until another state of being. To our friend Drowne, there came a brief season of excitement…rendered him a genius of that one occasion, but, quenched in disappointment, left him again the mechanical carver in wood, without the power even of appreciating the work that his own hands had wrought.”
“A Select Party.” “…a splendid library, the volumes of which were inestimable, because they consisted not of actual performances, but of the works which the authors only planned, without ever finding the happy season to achieve them….”
“A Book of Autographs.” “…Southern gentlemen are more addicted to a flourish of the pen beneath their names, than those of the North.”
“Rappaccini’s Daughter.” “…that he cares infinitely more for science than for mankind…. Patients are interesting to him only as subjects for some new experiment…would sacrifice human life, his own among the rest…for the sake of adding so much as a grain of mustard-seed to the great heap of his accumulated knowledge. This lovely woman had been nourished with poisons from her birth upward, until her whole nature was so imbued with them, that she herself had become the deadliest poison in existence. He could not quite forget the bouquet that withered in her grasp.” Beatrice to her father Giovanni: “Oh, was there not, from the first, more poison in thy nature than in mine?”
“P’s Correspondence.” “…think much about graves, with the long grass upon them, and weather-worn epitaphs, and dry bones of people who made noise enough in their day…. It behooves actors to vanish from the scene betimes, being, at best, but painted shadows flickering on the wall, and empty sounds that echo another’s thought….”
“Main Street.” “The pavements of the Main-Street must be laid over the red man’s grave. What was then the woodland pathway, but has long since grown into a busy street…. Dusk and then the starless night, to brood over the street; and summon forth again the bellman, with his lantern casting a gleam about his footsteps, to pace wearily from corner to corner, and shout drowsily the hour to drowsy or dreaming ears. Their fathers and grandsires tell them [the youth] how, within a few years past, the forest stood here with but a lonely track beneath its tangled shade; vain legend; they cannot make it true and real to their conceptions…. Nothing impresses them except their own experience.”
“Ethan Brand: A Chapter from an Abortive romance.” “He does not laugh like a man that is glad. Did you never hear of Ethan Brand? The man that went in search of the Unpardonable Sin? A man who, on his own confession had committed the only crime for which Heaven could afford no mercy. What is the Unpardonable sin? asked the lime-burner. The sin of an intellect that triumphed over the sense of brotherhood with man, and reverence for God and sacrificed everything to its own mighty claims. Unshrinkingly. I accept the retribution.”
“The Great Stone Face.” “True it is, that if the spectator approached too near, he lost the outline of the gigantic visage, and could discern only a heap of ponderous and gigantic rocks, piled in chaotic ruin one upon another.” “If an old prophecy should come to pass, answered his mother, we may see a man, some time or other, with exactly such a face as that.” “Behold! Behold! Ernest is himself the likeness of the Great Stone Face.”
Tales and Sketches. Parts One, Two, Three and Four. Nathaniel Hawthorne. (Continued)
“Drowne’s Wooden Image.” “On the supposition that in every human spirit there is imagination, sensibility, creative power, genius, which according to circumstances, may either be developed in this world, or shrouded in a mask of dullness until another state of being. To our friend Drowne, there came a brief season of excitement…rendered him a genius of that one occasion, but, quenched in disappointment, left him again the mechanical carver in wood, without the power even of appreciating the work that his own hands had wrought.”
“A Select Party.” “…a splendid library, the volumes of which were inestimable, because they consisted not of actual performances, but of the works which the authors only planned, without ever finding the happy season to achieve them….”
“A Book of Autographs.” “…Southern gentlemen are more addicted to a flourish of the pen beneath their names, than those of the North.”
“Rappaccini’s Daughter.” “…that he cares infinitely more for science than for mankind…. Patients are interesting to him only as subjects for some new experiment…would sacrifice human life, his own among the rest…for the sake of adding so much as a grain of mustard-seed to the great heap of his accumulated knowledge. This lovely woman had been nourished with poisons from her birth upward, until her whole nature was so imbued with them, that she herself had become the deadliest poison in existence. He could not quite forget the bouquet that withered in her grasp.” Beatrice to her father Giovanni: “Oh, was there not, from the first, more poison in thy nature than in mine?”
“P’s Correspondence.” “…think much about graves, with the long grass upon them, and weather-worn epitaphs, and dry bones of people who made noise enough in their day…. It behooves actors to vanish from the scene betimes, being, at best, but painted shadows flickering on the wall, and empty sounds that echo another’s thought….”
“Main Street.” “The pavements of the Main-Street must be laid over the red man’s grave. What was then the woodland pathway, but has long since grown into a busy street…. Dusk and then the starless night, to brood over the street; and summon forth again the bellman, with his lantern casting a gleam about his footsteps, to pace wearily from corner to corner, and shout drowsily the hour to drowsy or dreaming ears. Their fathers and grandsires tell them [the youth] how, within a few years past, the forest stood here with but a lonely track beneath its tangled shade; vain legend; they cannot make it true and real to their conceptions…. Nothing impresses them except their own experience.”
“Ethan Brand: A Chapter from an Abortive romance.” “He does not laugh like a man that is glad. Did you never hear of Ethan Brand? The man that went in search of the Unpardonable Sin? A man who, on his own confession had committed the only crime for which Heaven could afford no mercy. What is the Unpardonable sin? asked the lime-burner. The sin of an intellect that triumphed over the sense of brotherhood with man, and reverence for God and sacrificed everything to its own mighty claims. Unshrinkingly. I accept the retribution.”
“The Great Stone Face.” “True it is, that if the spectator approached too near, he lost the outline of the gigantic visage, and could discern only a heap of ponderous and gigantic rocks, piled in chaotic ruin one upon another.” “If an old prophecy should come to pass, answered his mother, we may see a man, some time or other, with exactly such a face as that.” “Behold! Behold! Ernest is himself the likeness of the Great Stone Face.”
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Books and Ideas (24)
I read for ideas. Here are some of the ideas I have found in books.
Tales and Sketches. Parts One, Two, Three and Four. Nathaniel Hawthorne. (Continued)
“Chippings with a Chisel.” “He seemed, unless my fancy misled me, to view mankind in no other relation than as people in want of tomb stones. His sole task, the duty for which Providence had sent the old man into the world, as it were, with a chisel in his hand, was to label the dead bodies, lest their names should be forgotten at the resurrection.”
“Legends of the Province House I: Howe’s Masquerade.” “The empire of Britain, in this ancient province, is at its last gasp tonight. Almost while I speak, it is a dead corpse and, methinks, the shadows of the old governors are fit mourners at its funeral!”
“Legends of the Province House II: Edward Randolph’s Portrait.” “He recognized me with evident pleasure; for my rare properties as a patient listener invariably make me a favorite with elderly gentlemen and ladies of narrative propensities.”
“Legends of the Province House IV: Lady Eleanore’s Mantle.” “Lady Eleanore was remarkable for a harsh, unyielding pride, a haughty consciousness of her hereditary and personal advantages. The pestilence compelled rich and poor to feel themselves brethren.”
“The Sister Years.” “But I, cried the fresh-hearted New Year, I shall try to leave men wiser than I find them.”
“The Lily’s Quest.” “The dismal shape of the old lunatic still glided behind them; and for every spot that looked lovely in their eyes, he had some legend of human wrong or suffering, so miserably sad, that his auditors could never afterwards connect the idea of joy with the place where it happened.”
“A Virtuoso’s Collection.” “My destiny is linked with the realities of earth; you are welcome to your visions and shadows of a future state; but give me what I can see, and touch, and understand, and I ask no more.”
“The Old Apple Dealer.” “I look at him in the very moment of intensest bustle, on the arrival of the cars’ [i.e., train] the shriek of the engine, as it rushes into the carhouse, is the utterance of the steam-fiend; travelers swarm forth full of the momentum which they have caught from their mode of conveyance; seems as if the whole world were set in rapid motion; in the midst of this terrible activity, here sits the old man, so subdued, so hopeless, so without a stake in life, the forlorn old creature, one chill and somber day, after another, gathering scanty coppers for his cakes, apples and candy.”
“The Antique Ring.” “Clara Pemberton, examining an antique ring, which her betrothed lover had just presented to her, needs only one thing to make it perfect; it needs nothing but a story; you must kindle your imagination and make a legend for it.”
“The Hall of Fantasy.” “What would you do if tomorrow were the last day of the world?”
“The New Adam and Eve.” “The new Adam and Eve, having no reminiscences, are content to live and be happy in the present.”
“The Birth Mark.” “No, dearest Georgiana, you came so nearly perfect from the hand of nature, that this slightest possible defect [the birthmark on her cheek]—which we hesitate to term a defect or a beauty—shocks me, as being the visible mark of earthly imperfection.” “As the last crimson tint of the birthmark—that sole token of human imperfection—faded from her cheek, the parting breath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere.”
Tales and Sketches. Parts One, Two, Three and Four. Nathaniel Hawthorne. (Continued)
“Chippings with a Chisel.” “He seemed, unless my fancy misled me, to view mankind in no other relation than as people in want of tomb stones. His sole task, the duty for which Providence had sent the old man into the world, as it were, with a chisel in his hand, was to label the dead bodies, lest their names should be forgotten at the resurrection.”
“Legends of the Province House I: Howe’s Masquerade.” “The empire of Britain, in this ancient province, is at its last gasp tonight. Almost while I speak, it is a dead corpse and, methinks, the shadows of the old governors are fit mourners at its funeral!”
“Legends of the Province House II: Edward Randolph’s Portrait.” “He recognized me with evident pleasure; for my rare properties as a patient listener invariably make me a favorite with elderly gentlemen and ladies of narrative propensities.”
“Legends of the Province House IV: Lady Eleanore’s Mantle.” “Lady Eleanore was remarkable for a harsh, unyielding pride, a haughty consciousness of her hereditary and personal advantages. The pestilence compelled rich and poor to feel themselves brethren.”
“The Sister Years.” “But I, cried the fresh-hearted New Year, I shall try to leave men wiser than I find them.”
“The Lily’s Quest.” “The dismal shape of the old lunatic still glided behind them; and for every spot that looked lovely in their eyes, he had some legend of human wrong or suffering, so miserably sad, that his auditors could never afterwards connect the idea of joy with the place where it happened.”
“A Virtuoso’s Collection.” “My destiny is linked with the realities of earth; you are welcome to your visions and shadows of a future state; but give me what I can see, and touch, and understand, and I ask no more.”
“The Old Apple Dealer.” “I look at him in the very moment of intensest bustle, on the arrival of the cars’ [i.e., train] the shriek of the engine, as it rushes into the carhouse, is the utterance of the steam-fiend; travelers swarm forth full of the momentum which they have caught from their mode of conveyance; seems as if the whole world were set in rapid motion; in the midst of this terrible activity, here sits the old man, so subdued, so hopeless, so without a stake in life, the forlorn old creature, one chill and somber day, after another, gathering scanty coppers for his cakes, apples and candy.”
“The Antique Ring.” “Clara Pemberton, examining an antique ring, which her betrothed lover had just presented to her, needs only one thing to make it perfect; it needs nothing but a story; you must kindle your imagination and make a legend for it.”
“The Hall of Fantasy.” “What would you do if tomorrow were the last day of the world?”
“The New Adam and Eve.” “The new Adam and Eve, having no reminiscences, are content to live and be happy in the present.”
“The Birth Mark.” “No, dearest Georgiana, you came so nearly perfect from the hand of nature, that this slightest possible defect [the birthmark on her cheek]—which we hesitate to term a defect or a beauty—shocks me, as being the visible mark of earthly imperfection.” “As the last crimson tint of the birthmark—that sole token of human imperfection—faded from her cheek, the parting breath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere.”
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Books and Ideas (23)
I read for ideas. Here are some of the ideas I have found in books.
Tales and Sketches. Parts One, Two, Three and Four. Nathaniel Hawthorne. (Continued)
“Peter Goldthwaite’s Treasure.” “For Brown never reckoned upon luck, yet always had it, while Peter made luck the main condition of his projects, and always missed it. Your namesake, Peter, was something like yourself, and when the provincial currency had depreciated fifty or seventy-five percent, he bought it up, in expectation of a rise. It is just the sort of capital for building castles in the air.”
“Endicott and the Red Cross.” “We look back through the mist of ages, and recognize, in the rending of the Red Cross from New England’s banner, the first omen of that deliverance which our fathers consummated, after the bones of the stern Puritan had lain more than a century in the dust.”
“Night Sketches: Beneath an Umbrella.” “One blast struggles for her umbrella, and turns it wrong side outward; another whisks the cape of her cloak across her eyes; while a third takes most unwarrantable liberties with the lower part of her attire.”
“The Shaker Bridal!” “When the mission of Mother Ann shall have wrought its full effect—when children shall no more be born and die, and the last survivor of mortal race, some old and weary man like me, shall see the sun go down, never more to rise on a world of sin and sorrow.”
“Footprints on the Sea-Shore.” “Find utterance in the sea’s unchanging voice, and warn the listener to withdraw his interest from mortal vicissitudes, and let the infinite idea of eternity pervade his soul. And when, at noontide, I tread the crowded streets, the influence of this day will still be felt, so that I shall walk among men kindly and as a brother, with affection and sympathy, but yet shall not melt into the indistinguishable mass of human kind.”
“Thomas Green Fessenden.” “ ‘Alliteratively entitled, Pills, Poetical, Political, and Philosophical; Prescribed for the Purpose of Purging the Public of Piddling Philosophers, of Penny Poetaster, of Paltry Politicians, and Petty Partisans…by Peter Pepperbox.’ Everybody who has known Mr. Fessenden must have wondered how the kindest-hearted man in all the world could have likewise been the most noted satirist of his day.”
“Time’s Portraiture.” “Time tells girls that they have nothing to do but dance and sing, and twine roses in their hair, and gather a train of lovers, and that the world will always be like an illuminated ballroom.”
“Snow-Flakes.” “Evening—the early eve of December—begins to spread its deepening veil over the comfortless scene; the fire-light gradually brightens, and throws my flickering shadow upon the walls and ceiling of the chamber, but still the storm rages and rattles against the windows…dead nature in her shroud.”
“The Threefold Destiny: A Fairy Legend.” “Now a credulous man, said Ralph Cranford carelessly to himself, might suppose that the treasure which I have sought round the world lies buried, after all, at the very door of my mother’s dwelling. Happy they who read the riddle without a weary world-search or a lifetime spent in vain.”
“Jonathan Cilley.” “Yet so strong was my conception of his energies—so like Destiny did it appear, that he should achieve everything at which he aimed—that, even now, my fancy will not dwell upon his grave, but pictures him still amid the struggles and triumphs of the present and the future.”
Tales and Sketches. Parts One, Two, Three and Four. Nathaniel Hawthorne. (Continued)
“Peter Goldthwaite’s Treasure.” “For Brown never reckoned upon luck, yet always had it, while Peter made luck the main condition of his projects, and always missed it. Your namesake, Peter, was something like yourself, and when the provincial currency had depreciated fifty or seventy-five percent, he bought it up, in expectation of a rise. It is just the sort of capital for building castles in the air.”
“Endicott and the Red Cross.” “We look back through the mist of ages, and recognize, in the rending of the Red Cross from New England’s banner, the first omen of that deliverance which our fathers consummated, after the bones of the stern Puritan had lain more than a century in the dust.”
“Night Sketches: Beneath an Umbrella.” “One blast struggles for her umbrella, and turns it wrong side outward; another whisks the cape of her cloak across her eyes; while a third takes most unwarrantable liberties with the lower part of her attire.”
“The Shaker Bridal!” “When the mission of Mother Ann shall have wrought its full effect—when children shall no more be born and die, and the last survivor of mortal race, some old and weary man like me, shall see the sun go down, never more to rise on a world of sin and sorrow.”
“Footprints on the Sea-Shore.” “Find utterance in the sea’s unchanging voice, and warn the listener to withdraw his interest from mortal vicissitudes, and let the infinite idea of eternity pervade his soul. And when, at noontide, I tread the crowded streets, the influence of this day will still be felt, so that I shall walk among men kindly and as a brother, with affection and sympathy, but yet shall not melt into the indistinguishable mass of human kind.”
“Thomas Green Fessenden.” “ ‘Alliteratively entitled, Pills, Poetical, Political, and Philosophical; Prescribed for the Purpose of Purging the Public of Piddling Philosophers, of Penny Poetaster, of Paltry Politicians, and Petty Partisans…by Peter Pepperbox.’ Everybody who has known Mr. Fessenden must have wondered how the kindest-hearted man in all the world could have likewise been the most noted satirist of his day.”
“Time’s Portraiture.” “Time tells girls that they have nothing to do but dance and sing, and twine roses in their hair, and gather a train of lovers, and that the world will always be like an illuminated ballroom.”
“Snow-Flakes.” “Evening—the early eve of December—begins to spread its deepening veil over the comfortless scene; the fire-light gradually brightens, and throws my flickering shadow upon the walls and ceiling of the chamber, but still the storm rages and rattles against the windows…dead nature in her shroud.”
“The Threefold Destiny: A Fairy Legend.” “Now a credulous man, said Ralph Cranford carelessly to himself, might suppose that the treasure which I have sought round the world lies buried, after all, at the very door of my mother’s dwelling. Happy they who read the riddle without a weary world-search or a lifetime spent in vain.”
“Jonathan Cilley.” “Yet so strong was my conception of his energies—so like Destiny did it appear, that he should achieve everything at which he aimed—that, even now, my fancy will not dwell upon his grave, but pictures him still amid the struggles and triumphs of the present and the future.”
Monday, October 13, 2008
Books and Ideas (22)
I read for ideas. Here are some of the ideas I have found in books.
Tales and Sketches. Parts One, Two, Three and Four. Nathaniel Hawthorne. (Continued)
“Old Ticonderoga.” “…behold only the gray and weed-grown ruins…as peaceful in the sun as a warrior’s grave.”
“Monsieur du Miroir.” “Farewell, Monsieur du Miroir! Of you, perhaps, as of many men, it may be doubted whether you are wiser, though your whole business is REFLECTION.”
“Mrs. Bullfrog.” “It makes me melancholy to see how like fools some very sensible people act, in the matter of choosing wives.”
“Sunday at Home.” “The first strong idea, which the preacher utters, gives birth to a train of thought and leads me onward, step-by-step, quite out of hearing of the good man’s voice.”
“The Man of Adamant.” “In the old times of religious gloom and intolerance lived Richard Digby, the gloomiest and most intolerant of a stern brotherhood.”
“David Swan: A Fantasy.” “There are innumerable events which come close upon us, yet pass away without actual results or even betraying their near approach.” [While he naps by the side of the road, people come on him, but pass on, who mean him good or harm.]
“The Great Carbuncle: A Mystery of the White Mountains.” “He was one of those ill-fated mortals such as the Indians told of, whom in their early youth, the Great Carbuncle smote with a peculiar madness and became the passionate dream of their existence.”
“Fancy’s Show Box: A Morality.” “And it is a point of vast interest, whether the soul may contract such stains, in all their depth and flagrancy, from deeds which may have been plotted and resolved upon, but which, physically, have never had existence.”
“The Prophetic Pictures.” “Could the result of one, or all of our deeds, be shadowed forth and set before us—some would call it fate, and hurry onward—others be swept along by their passionate desires and none be turned aside by the Prophetic Pictures.”
“Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment.” “Before you drink [of the Fountain of Youth], my friends, said he, it would be well that, with the experience of a life time to direct you, you should draw up a few general rules for your guidance, in passing a second time through the perils of youth.”
“A Bell’s Biography.” “By a strange coincidence, the very first duty of the sexton, after the bell had been hoisted into the belfry, was to toll the funeral knell of the donor.”
“Fragments from the Journal of a Solitary Man.” “A beautiful moral be indeed drawn from the early death of a sensitive recluse, who had shunned the ordinary avenues to distinction, and with splendid abilities sank into an early grave, almost unknown to mankind, and without any record save what my pen hastily leaves upon these tear-blotted pages.”
“Edward Fane’s Rosebud.” “There is hardly a more difficult exercise of fancy, than, while gazing at a figure of melancholy age, to re-create its youth.”
“The Toll-Gatherer’s Day: A Sketch of Transitory Life.” “ ‘Awful hot! Dreadful dusty!’ answers the sympathetic toll-gatherer.”
Tales and Sketches. Parts One, Two, Three and Four. Nathaniel Hawthorne. (Continued)
“Old Ticonderoga.” “…behold only the gray and weed-grown ruins…as peaceful in the sun as a warrior’s grave.”
“Monsieur du Miroir.” “Farewell, Monsieur du Miroir! Of you, perhaps, as of many men, it may be doubted whether you are wiser, though your whole business is REFLECTION.”
“Mrs. Bullfrog.” “It makes me melancholy to see how like fools some very sensible people act, in the matter of choosing wives.”
“Sunday at Home.” “The first strong idea, which the preacher utters, gives birth to a train of thought and leads me onward, step-by-step, quite out of hearing of the good man’s voice.”
“The Man of Adamant.” “In the old times of religious gloom and intolerance lived Richard Digby, the gloomiest and most intolerant of a stern brotherhood.”
“David Swan: A Fantasy.” “There are innumerable events which come close upon us, yet pass away without actual results or even betraying their near approach.” [While he naps by the side of the road, people come on him, but pass on, who mean him good or harm.]
“The Great Carbuncle: A Mystery of the White Mountains.” “He was one of those ill-fated mortals such as the Indians told of, whom in their early youth, the Great Carbuncle smote with a peculiar madness and became the passionate dream of their existence.”
“Fancy’s Show Box: A Morality.” “And it is a point of vast interest, whether the soul may contract such stains, in all their depth and flagrancy, from deeds which may have been plotted and resolved upon, but which, physically, have never had existence.”
“The Prophetic Pictures.” “Could the result of one, or all of our deeds, be shadowed forth and set before us—some would call it fate, and hurry onward—others be swept along by their passionate desires and none be turned aside by the Prophetic Pictures.”
“Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment.” “Before you drink [of the Fountain of Youth], my friends, said he, it would be well that, with the experience of a life time to direct you, you should draw up a few general rules for your guidance, in passing a second time through the perils of youth.”
“A Bell’s Biography.” “By a strange coincidence, the very first duty of the sexton, after the bell had been hoisted into the belfry, was to toll the funeral knell of the donor.”
“Fragments from the Journal of a Solitary Man.” “A beautiful moral be indeed drawn from the early death of a sensitive recluse, who had shunned the ordinary avenues to distinction, and with splendid abilities sank into an early grave, almost unknown to mankind, and without any record save what my pen hastily leaves upon these tear-blotted pages.”
“Edward Fane’s Rosebud.” “There is hardly a more difficult exercise of fancy, than, while gazing at a figure of melancholy age, to re-create its youth.”
“The Toll-Gatherer’s Day: A Sketch of Transitory Life.” “ ‘Awful hot! Dreadful dusty!’ answers the sympathetic toll-gatherer.”
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Books and Ideas (21)
I read for ideas. Here are some of the ideas I have found in books.
Tales and Sketches. Parts One, Two, Three and Four. Nathaniel Hawthorne. (Continued)
“The Gray Champion.” “But should domestic tyranny oppress us, or the invader’s step pollute our soil, still may the Gray Champion come; for he is the type of New England’s hereditary spirit; and his shadowy march, on the eve of danger, must ever be the pledge that New England’s sons will vindicate their ancestry.”
“My visit to Niagara.” “The eternal rainbow of Niagara….”
“Old News.” “…the idea that those same musty pages have been handled by people—once alive and bustling among the scenes there recorded, yet now in their graves beyond the memory of man.”
“Young Goodman Brown.” “Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest, and only dreamed a wild dream of witch-meeting? A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man, did he become from the night of that fearful dream.”
“Wakefield.” “The man, under pretense of going on a journey, took lodgings in the next street to his own house, and there, unheard of by his wife or friends, and without the shadow of a reason for such self-banishment, dwelt upwards of twenty years.”
“The Ambitious Guest.” “But, this evening, a prophetic sympathy impelled the refined and educated youth to pour out his heart before the simple mountaineers, and constrained them to answer him with the same free confidence…. [The mountain home is destroyed by an avalanche.] “…his death and existence, equally a doubt.”
“A Rill from the Town-Pump.” Scene: The town pump talking through its nose: “And be the moral of my story, that, as this wasted and long-lost fountain is now known and prized again, so shall the virtues of cold water, too little valued since your fathers’ days, be recognized by all.”
“The White Old maid.” “She dwelt alone, and never came into the daylight except to follow funerals.”
“The Vision of the Fountain.” “Must the simple mystery be revealed, then, that Rachel was the daughter of the village squire and had left home for a boarding school, the morning I arrived, and returned the day before my departure?”
“The Devil in Manuscript.” Disgusted, the author burns his manuscripts in the fire place and those burning pages, in turn, burn down the town. “My brain has set the town on fire.”
“Sketches from Memory.” “Anon, a Virginia schoolmaster, too intent on a pocket Virgil to heed the helmsman’s warning—‘Bridge! Bridge!—was saluted by the said bridge on his knowledge box.”
“The Wedding-Knell.” “…a scholar, throughout life, though always an indolent one, because his studies had no definite object either of public advantage or personal ambition.”
“The May-Pole of Merry Mount.” “Jollity and gloom were contending for an empire.” And the Puritans won.
“The Minister’s Black Veil: A Parable.” “Each member of the congregation, the most innocent girl, and the man of hardened breast, felt as if the preacher had crept upon them, behind his awful veil, and discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought.”
Tales and Sketches. Parts One, Two, Three and Four. Nathaniel Hawthorne. (Continued)
“The Gray Champion.” “But should domestic tyranny oppress us, or the invader’s step pollute our soil, still may the Gray Champion come; for he is the type of New England’s hereditary spirit; and his shadowy march, on the eve of danger, must ever be the pledge that New England’s sons will vindicate their ancestry.”
“My visit to Niagara.” “The eternal rainbow of Niagara….”
“Old News.” “…the idea that those same musty pages have been handled by people—once alive and bustling among the scenes there recorded, yet now in their graves beyond the memory of man.”
“Young Goodman Brown.” “Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest, and only dreamed a wild dream of witch-meeting? A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man, did he become from the night of that fearful dream.”
“Wakefield.” “The man, under pretense of going on a journey, took lodgings in the next street to his own house, and there, unheard of by his wife or friends, and without the shadow of a reason for such self-banishment, dwelt upwards of twenty years.”
“The Ambitious Guest.” “But, this evening, a prophetic sympathy impelled the refined and educated youth to pour out his heart before the simple mountaineers, and constrained them to answer him with the same free confidence…. [The mountain home is destroyed by an avalanche.] “…his death and existence, equally a doubt.”
“A Rill from the Town-Pump.” Scene: The town pump talking through its nose: “And be the moral of my story, that, as this wasted and long-lost fountain is now known and prized again, so shall the virtues of cold water, too little valued since your fathers’ days, be recognized by all.”
“The White Old maid.” “She dwelt alone, and never came into the daylight except to follow funerals.”
“The Vision of the Fountain.” “Must the simple mystery be revealed, then, that Rachel was the daughter of the village squire and had left home for a boarding school, the morning I arrived, and returned the day before my departure?”
“The Devil in Manuscript.” Disgusted, the author burns his manuscripts in the fire place and those burning pages, in turn, burn down the town. “My brain has set the town on fire.”
“Sketches from Memory.” “Anon, a Virginia schoolmaster, too intent on a pocket Virgil to heed the helmsman’s warning—‘Bridge! Bridge!—was saluted by the said bridge on his knowledge box.”
“The Wedding-Knell.” “…a scholar, throughout life, though always an indolent one, because his studies had no definite object either of public advantage or personal ambition.”
“The May-Pole of Merry Mount.” “Jollity and gloom were contending for an empire.” And the Puritans won.
“The Minister’s Black Veil: A Parable.” “Each member of the congregation, the most innocent girl, and the man of hardened breast, felt as if the preacher had crept upon them, behind his awful veil, and discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought.”
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Books and Ideas (20)
I read for ideas. Here are some of the ideas I have found in books.
Tales and Sketches. Parts One, Two, Three and Four. Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Why read it? Thought-provoking ideas on human nature. Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of my favorite authors. He spent his younger years as a recluse and his stories reflect his years of self-reflection. His novels depict the dark side of the human spirit—the unpardonable sin (The Scarlet Letter), the family curse (The House of the Seven Gables), the importance of sin to humanity (The Marble Faun), the inhumanity of reformers and the rejection of women intellectuals as women (The Blithedale Romance), but his tales and sketches reveal the creativity and variety of his ideas about the human race. Following is the title and a brief quote or summary of most of his tales, stories and sketches. I hope these snippets will cause you to want to read the whole tale, story or sketch.
“Mrs. Hutchinson.” “…and ready to propagate the religion of peace by violence.”
“An Old Woman’s Tale.” “She knit the toe-stitch on the day of her death.”
“Sights from the Steeple.” “The full of hope, the happy, the miserable, and the desperate, dwell together within the circle of my glance.”
“The Haunted Quack: A Tale of a Canal Boat.” “Ephraim was no more a doctor than his jack-ass.”
“My Kinsman, Major Molineux.” His kinsman Major Molineux had been taken away and tarred and feathered as a traitor. “Or, if you prefer to remain with us, perhaps, as you are a shrewd youth, you may rise in the world, without the help of your kinsman, Major Molineux.”
“Roger Malvin’s Burial.” “Reuben felt it impossible to acknowledge that his selfish love of life had hurried him away before his father’s fate was decided.”
“The Gentle Boy.” “The heathen savage would have given him to eat of his scanty morsel, and to drink of his birchen cup; but Christian men, alas! had cast him out to die.”
“The Canterbury Pilgrims.” “And a cold and passionless security [the Shakers], he substituted for human hope and fear as in that other refuge of the world’s weary outcasts, the grave.”
“Sir William Pepperell.” “Vaughan, alone, who had been the soul of the deed, from its adventurous conception till the triumphant close, and, in every danger, and every hardship, had exhibited a rare union or ardor and perseverance—Vaughan was entirely neglected and died in London, whither he had gone to make known his claims.”
“Passages from a Relinquished Work.” “I never knew the magic of a name till I used that of Mr. Higginbotham: often as I repeated it, there were loud bursts of merriment.”
“The Haunted Mind.” “Your spirit has departed and strays like a free citizen, among the people of a shadowy world, beholding strange sights, yet without wonder or dismay. So calm, perhaps, will be the final change: so undisturbed, as if among familiar things, the entrance of the soul to the Eternal home!”
“Alice Doane’s Appeal.” “Cotton Mather, proud of his well-won dignity, as the representative of all the hateful features of his time.”
“The Village Uncle: An Imaginary Retrospect.” “I recollect no happier portion of my life, than this, my calm old age.”
“Little Annie’s Ramble.” “Who, of all that address the public ear, whether in church, or courthouse, or hall of state, has such an attentive audience as the town crier.”
Tales and Sketches. Parts One, Two, Three and Four. Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Why read it? Thought-provoking ideas on human nature. Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of my favorite authors. He spent his younger years as a recluse and his stories reflect his years of self-reflection. His novels depict the dark side of the human spirit—the unpardonable sin (The Scarlet Letter), the family curse (The House of the Seven Gables), the importance of sin to humanity (The Marble Faun), the inhumanity of reformers and the rejection of women intellectuals as women (The Blithedale Romance), but his tales and sketches reveal the creativity and variety of his ideas about the human race. Following is the title and a brief quote or summary of most of his tales, stories and sketches. I hope these snippets will cause you to want to read the whole tale, story or sketch.
“Mrs. Hutchinson.” “…and ready to propagate the religion of peace by violence.”
“An Old Woman’s Tale.” “She knit the toe-stitch on the day of her death.”
“Sights from the Steeple.” “The full of hope, the happy, the miserable, and the desperate, dwell together within the circle of my glance.”
“The Haunted Quack: A Tale of a Canal Boat.” “Ephraim was no more a doctor than his jack-ass.”
“My Kinsman, Major Molineux.” His kinsman Major Molineux had been taken away and tarred and feathered as a traitor. “Or, if you prefer to remain with us, perhaps, as you are a shrewd youth, you may rise in the world, without the help of your kinsman, Major Molineux.”
“Roger Malvin’s Burial.” “Reuben felt it impossible to acknowledge that his selfish love of life had hurried him away before his father’s fate was decided.”
“The Gentle Boy.” “The heathen savage would have given him to eat of his scanty morsel, and to drink of his birchen cup; but Christian men, alas! had cast him out to die.”
“The Canterbury Pilgrims.” “And a cold and passionless security [the Shakers], he substituted for human hope and fear as in that other refuge of the world’s weary outcasts, the grave.”
“Sir William Pepperell.” “Vaughan, alone, who had been the soul of the deed, from its adventurous conception till the triumphant close, and, in every danger, and every hardship, had exhibited a rare union or ardor and perseverance—Vaughan was entirely neglected and died in London, whither he had gone to make known his claims.”
“Passages from a Relinquished Work.” “I never knew the magic of a name till I used that of Mr. Higginbotham: often as I repeated it, there were loud bursts of merriment.”
“The Haunted Mind.” “Your spirit has departed and strays like a free citizen, among the people of a shadowy world, beholding strange sights, yet without wonder or dismay. So calm, perhaps, will be the final change: so undisturbed, as if among familiar things, the entrance of the soul to the Eternal home!”
“Alice Doane’s Appeal.” “Cotton Mather, proud of his well-won dignity, as the representative of all the hateful features of his time.”
“The Village Uncle: An Imaginary Retrospect.” “I recollect no happier portion of my life, than this, my calm old age.”
“Little Annie’s Ramble.” “Who, of all that address the public ear, whether in church, or courthouse, or hall of state, has such an attentive audience as the town crier.”
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Books and Ideas (19)
I read for ideas. Here are some of the ideas I have found in books.
Tender Is the Night. F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Why read it? Novel. The theme is dependence. The weak person depends on the strong person. When the weak person becomes strong, the strong person becomes weak and dependent on the now strong person. Nicole is a wealthy mental patient who is desperately in love with and dependent on her young psychiatrist, Dick Diver, whom she marries. As she achieves mental stability and emotional independence, he deteriorates because he has become dependent on her. She leaves him for a man who will be her lover and her caretaker, and Dick begins an irreversible decline into alcoholism and dissolution. Portraits from the "Roaring 20's."
Tess of the D’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman. Thomas Hardy.
Why read it? Novel. Part of the charm of this novel, in spite of its tragic story of a good girl ruined, is Hardy’s description of the local villages, farms, nature in the changing seasons and customs.
This Side of Paradise. F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Why read it? The contrast between the superficial college kid whose main interest was flirting with girls as he attends Princeton and the world-weary, cynical, regretful, not-yet-thirty-year-old after serving as an officer in France during WWI. The novel is remarkable for its detailed descriptions of the early “Jazz age” and the “Lost Generation.”
A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
Why read it? This book, together with Theodore Sorenson’s Kennedy tells the reader what JFK learned about being President. When one member of his staff said he had no training for the office to which JFK was appointing him, JFK replied that he too had no education in how to be a President. They would both have to learn on the job. Both books are long, but very readable.
Time Present, Time Past. Bill Bradley.
Why read it? Bradley wrote this book (and others) in order to become a Presidential candidate in the year 2000 election. He didn’t achieve his goal of becoming President, but his book offers a view of some of the issues the next President must consider: the need to renew people’s faith in the government, the problems of racism, uniting the many cultures in our society, urban education, the use of downsizing to increase corporate profits and the nature of politics in the 21st century. Bradley says he wants to use Presidential power to alter the national self-perception.
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. Eric Hoffer.
Why read it? Hoffer thinks “true believers” are frustrated people who seek to lose their personalities in a cause, any cause, for which they are willing to do anything, even give their lives. Hoffer has thought deeply about mass movements and seems to put those thoughts on paper in a random fashion. What’s missing is transitions from one paragraph to another. However, the ideas are connected. The reader has to make the connections. Hoffer explores the many implications of the “true believer” type of personality.
Twelve Moons of the Year. Hal Borland. Ed. by Barbara Dodge Borland.
Why read it? These essays are beautifully written, short gems with not a word wasted, describing the changing seasons in rural New England. Hal Borland first published these essays in the New York Times. Their subject was the seasons in Connecticut where he lived. He wanted to show New Yorkers that there was life outside of New York City. He expresses the spirit of the seasons using all of the senses. His essays, one for each day of the year, are “sheer celebrations of life.”
Monday, October 6, 2008
Books and Ideas (18)
I read for ideas. Here are some of the ideas I have found in books.
The Great Crash: 1929. John Kenneth Galbraith.
Why read it? To understand the stock market crash of 1929 and, by extension, to understand how the Housing Bubble of the 2000s destroyed the U.S. financial industry. Speculation was the cause of the Stock Market Crash of 1929, buying stocks with a percentage of the cost, the stocks becoming then collateral for the rest of the purchase price. When the full price was called for they buyer did not have the money. However, the stock market crash contributed to in uncertain ways, but did not cause, the Depression—failure of the economy and unemployment were the cause of the Depression. The economy crashed along with the stock market, but the crash of the stock market did not necessarily cause the failure of the economy and the resulting Depression.
The Story of Philosophy. Will Durant.
Why read it? The purpose of this book is to make intelligible to the common person the ideas of philosophy. The author on the importance of philosophy: “Human knowledge had become too great for the human mind. ‘Facts’ replaced understanding; and knowledge, split into a thousand isolated fragments, no longer generated wisdom. Every science and every branch of philosophy developed a technical terminology intelligible only to its exclusive devotees; as men learned more about the world, they found themselves ever less capable of expressing to their educated fellow men what it was they had learned.” Therefore, Durant saw himself as a professional teacher whose role was to mediate between the specialist and the nation. Durant defined science as analysis and philosophy as synthesis: “Science is analytical description, philosophy is synthetic interpretation. For a fact…is not complete except in relation to a purpose and a whole. Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.”
Strictly Speaking; Will America Be the Death of English? Edwin Newman.
Why read it? If you love a good “rant,” this book is one of the better ones on a topic that everyone loves to rant on—the American language. From the cover: “Newman’s wry eye focuses on the sorry state of the English language as a reflection of the sorry state of society. If words are devalued, he argues, so are ideas and so are human beings. He rejoices in language that is lucid, graceful, direct, civilized. He urges us to be careful about what we say and how we say it. ‘Most of us will never speak succinctly or concretely; we may, however, aspire to; for direct and precise language, if people could be persuaded to try it, would make conversation more interesting, which is no small thing; it would help to substitute facts for bluster, also no small thing; and it would promote the practice of organized thought and even of occasional silence, which would be an immeasurable blessing.’ ”
Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys: Being a Second Wonder Book. Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Why read it? Sit back, settle in, it’s time for a story. Hawthorne tells stories to children about the ancient classical myths. “The Minotaur” (Theseus, Ariadne and the maze); Hercules and “the pygmies” who seek revenge for their friend, the giant Antaeus at the hands of Hercules; “The Dragon’s Teeth” (the kidnapping of Europa by the bull, a disguised god, and the search for her by Cadmus); “Circe’s Palace” (Circe and Ulysses); “The Pomegranate-Seeds” (Pluto and Proserpino); Jason, Medea and “The Golden Fleece.”
The Uncommon Wisdom of JFK. Eds. Bill Adler and Tom Folsom.
Why read it? John Kennedy thought deeply about government and life. He fully appreciated that America was a model for free societies. If America failed, society based on freedom would also fail. He appreciated the transience of life and was fully conscious that the effects of a world War III could obliterate the earth. They were the times in which he lived and governed and wrote and spoke.
The Great Crash: 1929. John Kenneth Galbraith.
Why read it? To understand the stock market crash of 1929 and, by extension, to understand how the Housing Bubble of the 2000s destroyed the U.S. financial industry. Speculation was the cause of the Stock Market Crash of 1929, buying stocks with a percentage of the cost, the stocks becoming then collateral for the rest of the purchase price. When the full price was called for they buyer did not have the money. However, the stock market crash contributed to in uncertain ways, but did not cause, the Depression—failure of the economy and unemployment were the cause of the Depression. The economy crashed along with the stock market, but the crash of the stock market did not necessarily cause the failure of the economy and the resulting Depression.
The Story of Philosophy. Will Durant.
Why read it? The purpose of this book is to make intelligible to the common person the ideas of philosophy. The author on the importance of philosophy: “Human knowledge had become too great for the human mind. ‘Facts’ replaced understanding; and knowledge, split into a thousand isolated fragments, no longer generated wisdom. Every science and every branch of philosophy developed a technical terminology intelligible only to its exclusive devotees; as men learned more about the world, they found themselves ever less capable of expressing to their educated fellow men what it was they had learned.” Therefore, Durant saw himself as a professional teacher whose role was to mediate between the specialist and the nation. Durant defined science as analysis and philosophy as synthesis: “Science is analytical description, philosophy is synthetic interpretation. For a fact…is not complete except in relation to a purpose and a whole. Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.”
Strictly Speaking; Will America Be the Death of English? Edwin Newman.
Why read it? If you love a good “rant,” this book is one of the better ones on a topic that everyone loves to rant on—the American language. From the cover: “Newman’s wry eye focuses on the sorry state of the English language as a reflection of the sorry state of society. If words are devalued, he argues, so are ideas and so are human beings. He rejoices in language that is lucid, graceful, direct, civilized. He urges us to be careful about what we say and how we say it. ‘Most of us will never speak succinctly or concretely; we may, however, aspire to; for direct and precise language, if people could be persuaded to try it, would make conversation more interesting, which is no small thing; it would help to substitute facts for bluster, also no small thing; and it would promote the practice of organized thought and even of occasional silence, which would be an immeasurable blessing.’ ”
Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys: Being a Second Wonder Book. Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Why read it? Sit back, settle in, it’s time for a story. Hawthorne tells stories to children about the ancient classical myths. “The Minotaur” (Theseus, Ariadne and the maze); Hercules and “the pygmies” who seek revenge for their friend, the giant Antaeus at the hands of Hercules; “The Dragon’s Teeth” (the kidnapping of Europa by the bull, a disguised god, and the search for her by Cadmus); “Circe’s Palace” (Circe and Ulysses); “The Pomegranate-Seeds” (Pluto and Proserpino); Jason, Medea and “The Golden Fleece.”
The Uncommon Wisdom of JFK. Eds. Bill Adler and Tom Folsom.
Why read it? John Kennedy thought deeply about government and life. He fully appreciated that America was a model for free societies. If America failed, society based on freedom would also fail. He appreciated the transience of life and was fully conscious that the effects of a world War III could obliterate the earth. They were the times in which he lived and governed and wrote and spoke.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Books and Ideas (17)
I read for ideas. Here are some of the ideas I have found in books.
Silas Marner. George Eliot.
Novel. Why read it? To read Silas Marner is to experience a time in England when people knew only their villages and the surrounding countryside. No one living today can appreciate how provincial and limited was their outlook on life. Silas Marner is a wholesome novel that was characterized by a writer in the 1960’s craze for “relevance” as “that Silas Marner crap.” I never read the novel until after I had completed graduate school, expecting something in the nature of “Goody Two-Shoes,” and I was surprised by the delightful scenes of English village life. I should have known from having previously read Middlemarch that George Eliot would never write “crap.”
Some Good in the World: A Life of Purpose. Edward J. Piszek with Jake Morgan.
Why read it? This book, little known, perhaps outside of the Philadelphia, PA, area and possibly in Poland, is an American success story. James Michener: “This is a story that imparts exactly what makes America unique among nations, where any man or woman may start life with few advantages and then—through courage, brilliance, endurance, and hard work—achieve not only great material wealth but also turn that life into the greatest treasure of them all: a life willed with purpose.” Piszek made his wealth from selling frozen fish.
The Spectator, Volume One. Addison , Steele and Others. Ed. Gregory Smith.
Why read it? The Spectator essays were not sermons. They amused. They were short. They made fun of anything that was not common sense. They recommended good manners by making fun of awkward and clumsy manners. Everyone recognized the targets of their humor. The essays also commented thoughtfully on life.
The Spectator, Volume 2. Addison, Steele and Others. Ed. Gregory Smith.
Why read it? In a way, the Spectator papers/essays fulfilled the need for a “Dear Abby” of the 18th century. Unlike Abby’s plain statements, short sentences and familiar vocabulary, the sentences in the Spectator papers are sometimes convoluted and lengthy, and the vocabulary stretches the reader, but the purpose of the Spectator is similar to Abby’s, to resolve problems using common sense. The Spectator papers do a remarkable job of presenting that consistent point of view although Addison and Steele and several other authors originated the papers individually. Take away the name of the author, and the reader will be hard pressed to discern a different style. Addison is more intellectual and Steele is more humorous and the others more prosaic and less imaginative, but the point of view—common sense—remains consistent.
The Star Thrower. Loren Eiseley.
Why read it? Loren Eiseley is a remarkable essayist. A professional scientist, he was an artist with words. Unlike scientists who analyze and dissect to kill, Eiseley retained his understanding of the mystery of life. His essays usually begin with a brief anecdote and he then extends its implications to science and humanity. He is of the school that sees people as a part of nature and nature as one with people, not as people who dominate nature. And he sees evolution as promising that human beings will one day improve themselves through evolution, that human personality will improve to match the wonders of scientific findings. This book collects some of Eiseley’s thought-provoking, memorable essays. When you finish an essay by Loren Eiseley, you will not be finished because you cannot stop thinking about what he has said.
Silas Marner. George Eliot.
Novel. Why read it? To read Silas Marner is to experience a time in England when people knew only their villages and the surrounding countryside. No one living today can appreciate how provincial and limited was their outlook on life. Silas Marner is a wholesome novel that was characterized by a writer in the 1960’s craze for “relevance” as “that Silas Marner crap.” I never read the novel until after I had completed graduate school, expecting something in the nature of “Goody Two-Shoes,” and I was surprised by the delightful scenes of English village life. I should have known from having previously read Middlemarch that George Eliot would never write “crap.”
Some Good in the World: A Life of Purpose. Edward J. Piszek with Jake Morgan.
Why read it? This book, little known, perhaps outside of the Philadelphia, PA, area and possibly in Poland, is an American success story. James Michener: “This is a story that imparts exactly what makes America unique among nations, where any man or woman may start life with few advantages and then—through courage, brilliance, endurance, and hard work—achieve not only great material wealth but also turn that life into the greatest treasure of them all: a life willed with purpose.” Piszek made his wealth from selling frozen fish.
The Spectator, Volume One. Addison , Steele and Others. Ed. Gregory Smith.
Why read it? The Spectator essays were not sermons. They amused. They were short. They made fun of anything that was not common sense. They recommended good manners by making fun of awkward and clumsy manners. Everyone recognized the targets of their humor. The essays also commented thoughtfully on life.
The Spectator, Volume 2. Addison, Steele and Others. Ed. Gregory Smith.
Why read it? In a way, the Spectator papers/essays fulfilled the need for a “Dear Abby” of the 18th century. Unlike Abby’s plain statements, short sentences and familiar vocabulary, the sentences in the Spectator papers are sometimes convoluted and lengthy, and the vocabulary stretches the reader, but the purpose of the Spectator is similar to Abby’s, to resolve problems using common sense. The Spectator papers do a remarkable job of presenting that consistent point of view although Addison and Steele and several other authors originated the papers individually. Take away the name of the author, and the reader will be hard pressed to discern a different style. Addison is more intellectual and Steele is more humorous and the others more prosaic and less imaginative, but the point of view—common sense—remains consistent.
The Star Thrower. Loren Eiseley.
Why read it? Loren Eiseley is a remarkable essayist. A professional scientist, he was an artist with words. Unlike scientists who analyze and dissect to kill, Eiseley retained his understanding of the mystery of life. His essays usually begin with a brief anecdote and he then extends its implications to science and humanity. He is of the school that sees people as a part of nature and nature as one with people, not as people who dominate nature. And he sees evolution as promising that human beings will one day improve themselves through evolution, that human personality will improve to match the wonders of scientific findings. This book collects some of Eiseley’s thought-provoking, memorable essays. When you finish an essay by Loren Eiseley, you will not be finished because you cannot stop thinking about what he has said.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Books and Ideas (16)
I read for ideas. Here are some of the ideas I have found in books.
The Scarlet Letter: A Romance. Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Why read it? A story of life in Puritan New England. Hester Prynne must wear the scarlet letter A on her breast to advertise her guilt as an adulteress, but she will not reveal the name of the father. It is Arthur Dimmesdale, a respected, godly, influential young preacher who has condemned publicly the very sin he has committed. Pursuing knowledge of the identity of the father is Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s husband, an older man, a physician, who had remained in Europe when Hester had come to America. He continually baits Dimmesdale while gathering evidence that he is the father. The book represents Hawthorne’s favorite themes: secret sin and the unpardonable sin of using others for one’s own purposes.
The Schweitzer Album: A Portrait in Words and Pictures. Erica Anderson.
Why read it? The essence of Dr. Schweitzer’s life and thought is respect and reverence for all life. He believed that the idea of reverence for life is spread from person to person, not through the mass media. All life is one. The good preserves and supports life; evil destroys or injures life. Everything that lives is related to humanity. The fly knows anxiety, hope and fear of not existing any more. Has any man been able to create a fly? Schweitzer earned degrees in philosophy, theology and medicine. He dedicated the first 30 years of his life to scholarship and music; the rest of his life would be dedicated to the service of men, modeling his life on Jesus Christ.
Seabiscuit: An American Legend. Laura Hillenbrand.
Why read it? You will have a hard time putting this book down. My first impression is that the people who know horses treat them as individuals. Treating horses as individuals was important to the success of Seabiscuit, who would have resisted working for anyone who did not recognize his personal traits, his toughness, his heart, his rebelliousness, his determination and the absolute need never to use the whip. Tom Smith was a horse training genius who studied his horses, notably Seabiscuit, to learn what he could about them as individuals.
Selling Sickness: How the World’s Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All into Patients. Ray Monihan and Alan Cassels.
Why read it? Ordinary people with common complaints are being turned into patients by pharmaceutical companies who market drugs through doctors and directly to consumers. “Awareness campaigns” make people concerned abut conditions that are part of the fluctuations of normal living. Little known conditions are emphasized; old diseases are redefined and renamed; new dysfunctions are created. Drug companies market fear in order to sell medications.
Sense and Sensibility. Jane Austen
Novel. Why read it? Two sisters have dramatically different personalities. Elinor is cool in crisis, objective, keeps emotion in check, sees and accepts the world as it is. Marianne is emotional, uncontrolled, blows apart in crisis. The two are jilted. How do they handle this disappointing turn in their lives?
Sketches by Boz [Rhymes with ‘nose”]. Charles Dickens.
Why read it? Dickens paints pictures with words. A collection of brief scenes of English life that are wonderfully entertaining and moving.
Solitude: A Return to Self. Anthony Storr.
Why read it? An in-depth analysis of the nature and uses of solitude. Interesting anecdotes. However, the author concludes that happiness comes from both personal interrelationships and solitude. Took a whole book to arrive at what appears to be plain common sense. Except that in today’s world, solitude is hard to come by. If you have never tried solitude, this book could cause you to try enjoying its advantages.
The Scarlet Letter: A Romance. Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Why read it? A story of life in Puritan New England. Hester Prynne must wear the scarlet letter A on her breast to advertise her guilt as an adulteress, but she will not reveal the name of the father. It is Arthur Dimmesdale, a respected, godly, influential young preacher who has condemned publicly the very sin he has committed. Pursuing knowledge of the identity of the father is Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s husband, an older man, a physician, who had remained in Europe when Hester had come to America. He continually baits Dimmesdale while gathering evidence that he is the father. The book represents Hawthorne’s favorite themes: secret sin and the unpardonable sin of using others for one’s own purposes.
The Schweitzer Album: A Portrait in Words and Pictures. Erica Anderson.
Why read it? The essence of Dr. Schweitzer’s life and thought is respect and reverence for all life. He believed that the idea of reverence for life is spread from person to person, not through the mass media. All life is one. The good preserves and supports life; evil destroys or injures life. Everything that lives is related to humanity. The fly knows anxiety, hope and fear of not existing any more. Has any man been able to create a fly? Schweitzer earned degrees in philosophy, theology and medicine. He dedicated the first 30 years of his life to scholarship and music; the rest of his life would be dedicated to the service of men, modeling his life on Jesus Christ.
Seabiscuit: An American Legend. Laura Hillenbrand.
Why read it? You will have a hard time putting this book down. My first impression is that the people who know horses treat them as individuals. Treating horses as individuals was important to the success of Seabiscuit, who would have resisted working for anyone who did not recognize his personal traits, his toughness, his heart, his rebelliousness, his determination and the absolute need never to use the whip. Tom Smith was a horse training genius who studied his horses, notably Seabiscuit, to learn what he could about them as individuals.
Selling Sickness: How the World’s Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All into Patients. Ray Monihan and Alan Cassels.
Why read it? Ordinary people with common complaints are being turned into patients by pharmaceutical companies who market drugs through doctors and directly to consumers. “Awareness campaigns” make people concerned abut conditions that are part of the fluctuations of normal living. Little known conditions are emphasized; old diseases are redefined and renamed; new dysfunctions are created. Drug companies market fear in order to sell medications.
Sense and Sensibility. Jane Austen
Novel. Why read it? Two sisters have dramatically different personalities. Elinor is cool in crisis, objective, keeps emotion in check, sees and accepts the world as it is. Marianne is emotional, uncontrolled, blows apart in crisis. The two are jilted. How do they handle this disappointing turn in their lives?
Sketches by Boz [Rhymes with ‘nose”]. Charles Dickens.
Why read it? Dickens paints pictures with words. A collection of brief scenes of English life that are wonderfully entertaining and moving.
Solitude: A Return to Self. Anthony Storr.
Why read it? An in-depth analysis of the nature and uses of solitude. Interesting anecdotes. However, the author concludes that happiness comes from both personal interrelationships and solitude. Took a whole book to arrive at what appears to be plain common sense. Except that in today’s world, solitude is hard to come by. If you have never tried solitude, this book could cause you to try enjoying its advantages.
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