Jun 24, 2023The Snow Leopard
By Peter MatthiessenReading this brought to mind Susan Sontag's On Photography, or at least what I remember of it/what I imagine it as saying, having read it a number of years ago. Not to say that they have anything in common or anything, but. What I imagine Sontag saying is something about the act of photography causing an incision between the realities of the viewer and the viewee. The photographer becomes the camera and the subject an object. What occurred to me reading this is that the same logic can apply just as well to writing about the act of photography - in examining photography, you loose the ability to do photography. This is a bit of a silly criticism of Sontag, but I think it points its finger towards ideas around non-fiction as a whole - writing about an experience, and especially planning to write about an experience, will color that experience, make it less Authentic.
Jun 24, 2023Walden
By Henry ThoreauI listened to Walden while walking through the woods around Walden, and I gotta say - the words still ring true. Yes, he was a few hours walk from Boston, yes his mom probably did his laundry for him and the whole experience is a bit silly on the face of it. But there is a pleasant earnestness and optimism to Thoreau's years in "the woods" that I can't help but admire.
Jun 10, 2023Don Quixote
By Miguel de CervantesA bit awkward at times, a bit of a mouthful, as perhaps waranted given centuries of separation. Like a young deer struggling to walk, there are moments of grace and wit that are astounding - but of course my metaphor is all wrong. From my perspective it seems that Cervantes stands at the very dawn of a process that eventually gives us Mel Brooks, but I am missing the context that makes him instead the culmination of all that went before. And with this perspective I enjoy it more as a pointer to what came later (that is to say, "wow! This must have been revolutionary in its time! It is so modern it is almost as funny and emotionally engaging as modern novels!"), and less on its own for its intrinsic merits (that is to say, "I would chose to read this book over others"). Which, to be fair and frank, its intrinsic merits are of course not lacking. Don Quixote is a great character, Sancho Panza possibly greater, and the book, of course, Great. But is it good?
Jun 10, 2023The Magic Mountain
By Thomas MannAs a book, certainly a very good one, although as a Great Book I found it a bit middling. It has a certain uniqueness that is intriguing, a story that wavers and a temporality that wanes - and occasionally waxes - I guess it really is a Magic Mountain. Hans Castorp's journey to a sanitorium, to a lassitude and elongation of days, is at times all the things you need out of a book, deep and emotional and superficial and sad and light comedy and romantic and edifying or at least illustrative. Maybe it is that I took too much time reading it, but I think what it is missing is just not being lifechanging, at least for me. Certainly, though, a very good book.
May 27, 2023House Of Spirits
By Isabelle AllendeThe thing is, Gabriel García Márquez is tough competition. This is One Hundred Years of Solitude with worse writing and better politics, I am not likely the first to say, but the writing is in fact still brilliant. The story is spectacular, intergenerational family epics are maybe my favorite genre? and in the end I cannot hold the mimicry against Allende. A wonderful book
May 27, 2023Pilgrim At Tinker Creek
By Annie DillardAn entirely self-indulgent conversation with a passionate believer in the wonder and the beauty of the natural world, full of excellent tidbits and charming vignettes, of life by the creek and Life by the Creek. I like the review that says "Just when you thought something interesting was going to happen she watches birds or something for hours." If you are looking for plot (and I do have a bit of a personal predilection/weakness in that direction) this is not where that will be found. It is instead a good book for telling you to go to the woods and front only the essential facts of life, for painting a golden aura around that which has the tendency to become mundane dirt, trees, sky. I find that some of the best books I read are those that inculcate a yearning for faith and belief in something greater, and this scratches that itch.
May 27, 2023The Odyssey
By HomerMy thoughts on the Odyssey are largely similar to my thoughts on The Iliad, in the extent to which this story told millennia ago about a people and a culture distant in all manors from mine remains engaging, entertaining, and apparently well crafted is of course remarkable. It is clearly apparent why the Odyssey is more referenced and revered than its sibling the Iliad, focusing on the more personal story, hitting more of the familiar Hero's Journey archetype, which is so much more common today than the Hero is Sad about his Slave Being Taken Away But Gets Better And Fights Everyone and Then There Is a Tournament archetype. Good enough that it is probably worthy of a read beyond just being one of the most influential stories of the western canon.
May 19, 2023As I Lay Dying
By William FaulknerI don't think I gave this book a fair hand, I don't think the audio book did well. I was worse at following it than I was with my recent forays into Joyce, despite Faulkner's comparatively straightforward story and language. The ravings and wanderings and decayings and burnings and bloatings of the family and their journey, while not inexpertly conveyed, did not quite strike true. I think this should have struck me in the gut, and it did not. Maybe later, or maybe read in the usual oracular sense
May 19, 2023Dawn Of Everything
By David Graeber and David WengrowGraerber and Wengrow paint a compelling and beautiful painting of new potentials for understanding the past & present. They set up a neat dichotomy between a Rousseaun and Hobbesian view of the origins of humanity, before bravely pointing out that it was maybe a bit more complicated than all that. Some powerful ideas around political and social organizational structure experimentation, differing practices and paradigms, the impact of play and the view of humanity as effectively originating in play. They walk an interesting line between criticizing the anthropologists who revere and idolize the way of life outside the State, and at the same time offering optimistict and bordering-on utopian interpretations of the same - but, after all, they have a good story for all of it, and a smattering of impactful and transformative ideas to think on. An edifying read.