What are you currently reading?

[Jo498]

I think I read a bunch of articles or interviews around Israel's book a few years ago and as I recall I thought that his distinction between "radical" and "moderate" enligthenment thinkers was interesting and a fair point. He seems to exaggerate or be simply wrong about the influence. Surely, a moderate like Kant was very influential. Or Locke before that. I'd also say that Voltaire and Diderot were more moderate than Rousseau, D'Holbach or LaMettrie and comparably important to Rousseau und more so than the last two. (Just random examples, I am not trying to state a thesis).

[Florestan]

I think I read a bunch of articles or interviews around Israel's book a few years ago and as I recall I thought that his distinction between "radical" and "moderate" enligthenment thinkers was interesting and a fair point. He seems to exaggerate or be simply wrong about the influence. Surely, a moderate like Kant was very influential. Or Locke before that.

Good point.

I'd also say that Voltaire and Diderot were more moderate than Rousseau, D'Holbach or LaMettrie

Rousseau was no moderate, not by any stretch of imagination. How can one be a moderate who prescribes death for atheists*?

(*all right, by atheism he meant disbelief in the civil religion of the state, but still.Anyone who wishes death upon those who disagree with them is no moderate. It's not even a radical. It's a fanatic.)

Beside, we're talking about the man who abandoned his own children to an orphanage and then went on to write extensively about how children should be educated. Disgusting. Nietzsche was right in calling Rousseau "a moral tarantula".

[Christo]

I don't think he dismisses them completely or denies they have had their admirers or adherents but he just doesn't find their ideas or thought to have been radical or daring enough for the kind of change that has occurred in the last several hundred years, principally starting with the French Revolution. 

That's a teleological and, if you wish, also finalist scheme, both deadly sins for historians. Almost any overview of what the Enlightenment was - there are dozens of them around - will be more reliable.

I think I read a bunch of articles or interviews around Israel's book a few years ago and as I recall I thought that his distinction between "radical" and "moderate" enligthenment thinkers was interesting and a fair point. He seems to exaggerate or be simply wrong about the influence. Surely, a moderate like Kant was very influential. Or Locke before that. I'd also say that Voltaire and Diderot were more moderate than Rousseau, D'Holbach or LaMettrie and comparably important to Rousseau und more so than the last two. (Just random examples, I am not trying to state a thesis).

Exactly.

[aligreto]

Wells: Love and Mr. Lewisham





This story traces the path of a young idealistic man over a few short years where, through circumstances, he is gradually worn down and transformed into a realist who must surrender his ideals. The tale is made more interesting, nay determined, by the two very different women who enter his life and the effect that they have or could have had on him. It is a good read.

[Brian]

Beside, we're talking about the man who abandoned his own children to an orphanage and then went on to write extensively about how children should be educated. Disgusting. Nietzsche was right in calling Rousseau "a moral tarantula".

By coincidence, a few weeks ago I read Mary Wollstonecraft's "Vindication of the Rights of Women" and she sees Rousseau as her primary enemy on the subject of how to educate women, to the point of mocking much of the rest of his belief system too.

[Florestan]

He reminds me of Thomas Jefferson, private life rather sordid and contradictory but a fascinating thinker and person in general.

Agreed about Jefferson, but I can't stand Rousseau, neither as a thinker (a proto-totalitarian) nor as a person in general (a "moral tarantula" in the apt words of Nietzsche).

Voltaire, on the other hand, despite his numerous flaws, was a great and noble soul, keenly aware of, and opposed to, injustice and fanaticism. A proto-liberal. It's no wonder he and Rousseau never got along well.

[Jo498]

But both I and presumeably Israel counted Rousseau among the "radicals". Surely, he was influential but overall more than the more moderate French or the Germans? I am not sure, but are there well known "radicals" not French? One might count Hume among the radicals but hardly the other Scots like Reid and Smith. And who of the Germans would count as radical? Kant and Fichte were considered dangerous, but this was Prussia, after all, so one did not have to be very radical for this. If one looks at the "radical strain" with the socialists in the early/mid 19th etc. one will of course find the older radicals more influential. But one reason for this is that a lot of the moderate enlightenment thought had become mainstream by then, I'd say.

[T. D.]

 

[aligreto]

The Rusty Knight and Other Tales from Germany





This is a book very much in the old style of Tales With A Moral. However, the tales are imaginative and interesting and yes, they do deliver the requisite morals on such topics as Idealism, Sarcasm, Redemption, Disillusionment, Deceit etc. There is also a nice element of wit and humour in the translations so that they are not just old folk or fairy tales. I enjoyed the read.

[ritter]

Interrupted my reading of Roger Martin du Gard monumental (and fascinating) posthumous novel Le lieutenant-colonel de Maumort (my post on that vanished in GMG's "time warp"  )  to tackle Mario Vargas-Llosa's recently published anthology of texts about (and interviews with) Jorge Luis Borges—spanning over half a century.

[asin]842043597X[/asin]
I read its 115 pages in one sitting. I'm much more an admirer of Borges than of Vargas-Llosa, but what the latter conveys in this short book is a work of love and admiration, even if his own literature is diametrically opposed to the Argentinian's positions. Also, Vargas-Llosa manages to show Borges the man in a rather sympathetic light, what for me is no mean feat: IMHO, Borges is one if the greatest authors in Spanish ever, but his literature is cold and distant, and his public persona hardly ever came through as "simpático" (to me at least). A most enjoyable diversion.

Back to Maumort today (the lieutenant-colonel to be has turned 19 years of age at around page 320  ).

[vers la flamme]

^Nice. I'm reading Borges's Labyrinths, an anthology of fictions by the late author, for the first time. It's clear to me and anyone who reads this that he was a genius. This is some truly mind boggling stuff. He writes with such an erudite style that it's almost hard to follow at times, but it's maddeningly clever, thought provoking stuff.

Other than that, I've also started Cormac McCarthy's The Crossing. Other than McCarthy's incredibly mannered prose (to which I'm not entirely a newcomer, having read The Road & No Country for Old Men back in high school, but now, I'm finding it grating at times), I am rather enjoying it. It's certainly less bleak than some of McCarthy's other work, which I see as a plus.

This scene from one of my favorite films is an impeccable parody of McCarthy's style...:

https://youtu.be/XeKjKWXWZOE

Edit: still don't know how to embed videos, apparently. https://youtu.be/XeKjKWXWZOE

[stingo]

Edit: still don't know how to embed videos, apparently. https://youtu.be/XeKjKWXWZOE

Code Select Expand

[flash=560,315]https://www.youtube.com/v/XeKjKWXWZOE[/flash]

https://www.youtube.com/v/XeKjKWXWZOE

[aligreto]

Short Stories by Russian Authors





This compilation includes works by Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Korolenko, Chekov, Chirikov, Andreyev, Kuprin, Gorky and Sologub.

[Brian]

500 pages down, 800 pages left in War and Peace!

[vers la flamme]

500 pages down, 800 pages left in War and Peace!

In 1 week? Or am I misremembering that you started at the top of the month...? Impressive! 

I miss Russian lit. I'm thinking of rereading Anna Karenina which I read in high school and enjoyed, but now barely remember. I want to save War & Peace for a few years down the line.

I've made very little progress in The Crossing & Labyrinths, they're both slow reads. I'm thinking of picking up another book that I know I'll be able to finish quickly, just to feel like I'm making progress.

[BWV 1080]

I've made very little progress in The Crossing & Labyrinths, they're both slow reads. I'm thinking of picking up another book that I know I'll be able to finish quickly, just to feel like I'm making progress.

This site  has free online versions of both books along with every analysis that has ever been published, although it may take a while to find

[Florestan]

I miss Russian lit. I'm thinking of rereading Anna Karenina which I read in high school and enjoyed, but now barely remember. I want to save War & Peace for a few years down the line.

Why don't you go for Turgenev? His novels are not intimidating bricks, his insights are just as interesting as Dostoyevsky's and Tolstoy's and imho he's more delicate, warm, humane and fun to read than both. Ditto for Chekhov's short stories and novellas.

[Brian]

Why don't you go for Turgenev? His novels are not intimidating bricks, his insights are just as interesting as Dostoyevsky's and Tolstoy's and imho he's more delicate, warm, humane and fun to read than both. Ditto for Chekhov's short stories and novellas.

Or Gogol for something a little different!

The section of W&P that I read was the only bit I hadn't fully enjoyed so far (the big hunt scene and following sequence of everyone being depressed about various things). So far, Tolstoy juggles his plotlines really skillfully and, unlike in Anna Karenina, none of them are preachy/boring. (AK would be so great without Levin...)

I started W&P on July 1 so averaging 75 pages per day so far, which is a blistering pace and likely unsustainable.

[Florestan]

Or Gogol for something a little different!

Yes, Gogol too is quite fun.

[aligreto]

Farrington: Marvels & Mysteries of the Unexplained





This is one of those larger sized coffee table books which is designed to be dipped into now and then rather than read continuously. That is what I am doing with it around my other reading. It is not hugely informative but it is thought provoking.