What are you currently reading?

[vers la flamme]

I finished Embers. I enjoyed it, though I found the resolution a bit anticlimactic—I guess that's the point.

Now reading Stefan Zweig's Chess Story



So far, so good. A short book and so far an easy read, but Zweig's language is vivid.

[aligreto]

Orwell: Keep the Aspidistra Flying





This is the story of a man, Gordon Comstock, who comes from an impoverished middle class English family. His problem is that the family motto, even in their penury, was to "Make Good" by getting a "good" job". Comstock's main ambition in life is to get out of the money-worship cycle. He consciously walks out of two "good" jobs as a result of his principles and ends up as a lowly paid assistant in a book shop while he harbours ambitions to be a poet. He becomes that starving Poet in the garret.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Some basic Stoicism ...

Epictetus:  The Enchiridion

Marcus Aurelius:  Meditations, (Introduction by Gregory Hays)

My bibles.

[vers la flamme]

I finished Chess Story. That was surprisingly really good! I am very impressed with Zweig's writing. Going to try and read more of his novellas.

My bibles.

I read Meditations back in high school, but I don't remember much of it. Time for a reread; I am interested in stoicism. Never read any Epictetus.

[Artem]

I finished Embers. I enjoyed it, though I found the resolution a bit anticlimactic—I guess that's the point.

That was my feeling too. The ending felt like he just needed to finish it quick and move on to something else.

[vandermolen]

My daughter gave me this for Father's Day:

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

My daughter gave me this for Father's Day:

Happy Father's Day, Jeffrey. That's a nice book by great author!

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

I finished Chess Story. That was surprisingly really good! I am very impressed with Zweig's writing. Going to try and read more of his novellas.

I read Meditations back in high school, but I don't remember much of it. Time for a reread; I am interested in stoicism. Never read any Epictetus.

Epictetus is my favorite Stoic philosopher.  He and Michel Montaigne have provided me with solace and hope throughout my life. William Irvin's works from Oxford University Press explain and discuss core issues in Stoicism very well. The books are highly accessible and often entertaining, and they are well-reputed in populace, as well as academics.

[vers la flamme]

Started this today:



Kitchen, by Banana Yoshimoto. I must admit, it's way, way better than I was expecting. A very visceral illustration of grief, from the perspective of a young woman. I'm impressed with Ms. Yoshimoto's writing and would love to read more. I'm about halfway done with this one.

Epictetus is my favorite Stoic philosopher.  He and Michel Montaigne have provided me with solace and hope throughout my life. William Irvin's works from Oxford University Press explain and discuss core issues in Stoicism very well. The books are highly accessible and often entertaining, and they are well-reputed in populace, as well as academics.

Thanks, man. I will have to put both William Irvine and Epictetus himself on the list, in addition to revisiting Marcus Aurelius.

[vandermolen]

Happy Father's Day, Jeffrey. That's a nice book by great author!

Thank you very much Manabu!
I've just about finished the first essay which I enjoyed reading. It confirms what I'd always believed about Italian Fascism - its lack of ideology and interest in achieving power by whatever method.

I love your new Avatar by the way!

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Started this today:



Kitchen, by Banana Yoshimoto. I must admit, it's way, way better than I was expecting. A very visceral illustration of grief, from the perspective of a young woman. I'm impressed with Ms. Yoshimoto's writing and would love to read more. I'm about halfway done with this one.

I read the book right after the publication when I was about your age. I am delighted to  see that you like the book. I remember that my friend, literary major student at a prestigious university (alma mater of H Murakami), and I positively discussed about the book several times. I should re-read it soon. Her father is a well-known social critic/philosopher Ryumei Yoshimoto, and her sister is a cartoonist Yoiko Haruno.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Thank you very much Manabu!
I've just about finished the first essay which I enjoyed reading. It confirms what I'd always believed about Italian Fascism - its lack of ideology and interest in achieving power by whatever method.

I love your new Avatar by the way!

Sounds fascinating! For my job, I partly work on the characteristics and measurements of authoritarian personalities.

[vandermolen]

Sounds fascinating! For my job, I partly work on the characteristics and measurements of authoritarian personalities.

How very interesting!
I've worked with a few of those in my time - not a pleasant experience.
I think that Godzilla definitely has an authoritarian personality 

[Florestan]

Sounds fascinating! For my job, I partly work on the characteristics and measurements of authoritarian personalities.

Interesting. What are these characteristics and measurements?

[Florestan]

Thank you very much Manabu!
I've just about finished the first essay which I enjoyed reading. It confirms what I'd always believed about Italian Fascism - its lack of ideology and interest in achieving power by whatever method.

Otoh, lacking an ideology can mean that one is relatively less inclined to enforce one --- and indeed one can argue that, of the three classical totalitarian regimes (USSR, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy), the latter was relatively the most lenient and the least brutal and that life in the late 1930s Italy was relatively more relaxed and enjoyable than in Germany or Russia --- I for one at least I'd have very much prefererred to live in Rome rather than Moscow and Berlin back then.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

I think that Godzilla definitely has an authoritarian personality 

Godzilla, a product of nuclear waste, didn't like the industrialization and new order in the post-WW2 economic boom in Japan.
Godzilla is Nietzschean in that he is beyond good/evil dichotomy. 

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Otoh, lacking an ideology can mean that one is relatively less inclined to enforce one --- and indeed one can argue that, of the three classical totalitarian regimes (USSR, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy), the latter was relatively the most lenient and the least brutal and that life in the late 1930s Italy was relatively more relaxed and enjoyable than in Germany or Russia --- I for one at least I'd have very much prefererred to live in Rome rather than Moscow and Berlin back then.

You may possibly/partially be right about Italy. I think the movies, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (de Sica) and 1900 (Conformist as well, Bertolucci) depict the fascist Italy very well.

[André]

You may possibly/partially be right about Italy. I think the movies, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (de Sica) and 1900 (Conformist as well, Bertolucci) depict the fascist Italy very well.

Great movies indeed, although I clearly prefer Conformist and Garden of the Finzi-Continis. Two great performances by the enigmatic Dominique Sanda.

[steve ridgway]

Sounds fascinating! For my job, I partly work on the characteristics and measurements of authoritarian personalities.

My boss once came back from some management training course and asked if I thought he was authoritarian. So I replied "only when people don't agree with you".

[Florestan]

You may possibly/partially be right about Italy. I think the movies, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (de Sica) and 1900 (Conformist as well, Bertolucci) depict the fascist Italy very well.

Thank you very much for these recommendations, much appreciated. I will watch all of them asap.

One point to be stressed as well is that initially Mussolini was rather critical of Hitler and hoped for a rapprochement with British, American and French "democracies" --- it's only when the latter didn't come that he felt he had no choice other than totally allying himself with Hitler.

Btw, Dolfuss and Salazar were outspoken critics of Hitler and Nazism as well, all their life (the Austrian even paid his stance with his life); Franco, a brazen opportunist, welcomed Hitler's and Mussolini's aid but denied his own to them both --- unlikable, utterly despicable character as he was, it's arguable that he saved both Spain and Europe from being enslaved first by Stalin and then by Hitler.