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.”