Jul 12 2012

Einstein by Walter Isaacson

I read this book several years ago; on rereading it I was much more interested in Einstein’s science than his life story. Yet the story is still inspiring; it is a testimony to what an unconventional mind and a lot of curiosity can accomplish. Einstein remained a determinist throughout his life, and on reading a book about a successful life like this it is easy to believe that some mysterious Providence guides us through life, although Einstein’s determinism was scientific rather than religious. Alas, Fate is not so generous to all men. Einstein had the rare good fortune to not only be a genius but to have his genius recognized and celebrated in his own lifetime. And he was not a tormented genius; his biography bespeaks a man possessed of tremendous inner calm. I have not gotten very far studying Einstein’s theories, but his life as well as his science has lessons that all of us can profit from.

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Jul 09 2012

Pulp by Charles Bukowski

When I first read this, I thought it was the worst novel I had ever read. On a second reading, however, it comes off remarkably well. It’s much funnier than I remembered the first time around, and somehow the ending seems more poignant now. It’s not one of Bukowski’s best, but it’s still Bukowski: funny, misanthropic, uninhibited, darkly philosophical. The first time I read it I would have given it a one star rating, but now I’m giving it four stars. I believe this is the last thing Bukowski published in his lifetime; it’s worth reading just to see his last printed words, which are as cynical and unrepentant as ever. And yet…there is beauty here, some roses growing out of the garbage heap. Bukowski has been dead for twenty years, but his brilliant, bitter words live on.

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Jul 05 2012

The Social Animal by David Brooks

This is ostensibly the life stories of two people from youth to old age, but it is really a vehicle for illustrating the results of the social and psychological research that is obviously dear to the author’s heart. It’s an engaging mixture of narrative, commentary, and analysis, but it’s clear from the kind of people David Brooks writes about that he’s used to moving in fairly privileged and affluent circles. I didn’t recognize myself in any of his successful, socially integrated, well adjusted characters, and this book made me uncomfortably aware that I am not one of the high achieving A-type personalities that Brooks clearly believes are cut out for success. This book is not without merit, but Brooks clearly lives in a different world from the one I inhabit, and I suspect that his upper middle class profiles are not exactly representative of average Americans either. The book is not exactly The Great Gatsby, but it’s certainly not The Jungle either.

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Jun 18 2012

The March of Folly by Barbara Tuchman

Tuchman’s thesis is that governments frequently, through sheer obstinacy and stupidity, do things that are injurious to their own interests. She cites four primary historical examples: the Trojans in the Trojan War, the papacy preceding the Reformation, the British government during the American Revolution, and the government of the United States during the Vietnam War. But it is when she gets to Vietnam that you get the feeling that this is primarily what she has been leading up to and is her primary purpose in writing this book. Tuchman seems to believe that political power has a way of insulating leaders from reality until it is too late, and that it is easier for leaders to stick to a faulty plan than to admit a mistake and make a course correction. However persuasive her arguments are…and they are fairly persuasive…this book makes a nice trip through history and is as enjoyable for its narrative rendering as it is for its polemics

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2012/06/18/the-march-of-folly-by-barbara-tuchman/

Jun 17 2012

The Enneads by Plotinus

This work deserves more discussion than space allows, even though much of it was unintelligible to me. It represents Plotinus’ quest to know and understand God, which for him consists of a trinity: the One, the Intellectual-Principle, and the All-Soul. Part of his problem is that he is trying to describe in words something that for him is clearly ineffable. Some of his problems are familiar to all thinkers who have tackled this subject: how unity coexists with particularism, how perfection can give rise to imperfection, how evil can exist in a world created by a good God, how free will can be reconciled with necessity. Plotinus’ concept of the One is of a pure, impersonal, perfect Being; it is truly a philosopher’s idea of God: a God who exists in a state of abstract perfection, does nothing, and for all practical purposes is totally useless. His philosophy of life, inasmuch as he has one, is also not terribly practical. All in all a somewhat stimulating but not very inspiring work.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2012/06/17/the-enneads-by-plotinus/

May 18 2012

A Better War by Lewis Sorley

Every now and then you get a revisionist account of Vietnam that argues that the U.S. military knew what it was doing and could have won the war if not for the hippies, the journalists, and the politicians. Sorley makes a decent case that the war under the command of General Creighton Abrams was not a complete disaster, and even goes so far as to argue that the war was practically won by 1970, after the Viet Cong were virtually annihilated by their disastrous Tet Offensive. The argument goes that the process of Vietnamization was too rapid and the United States withdrew its support of South Vietnam too precipitously for the South to hang on to its gains. The American people and their government simply lost their will to win the war. So…did Walter Cronkite lose the war? There are a lot of ifs and might-have-beens in this book that incline one to think that Sorley protests too much, but he makes as good a case as anyone for the revisionist theory. Kudos for a determined effort.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2012/05/18/a-better-war-by-lewis-sorley/

May 13 2012

The Proud Tower by Barbara Tuchman

This was a deliciously written book about the turn of the century, an era little remarked upon by most historians. The era throughout seems to be one of marked class antagonism, although if there is a theme to this book, it is that the oppressed and toiling masses are no wiser or more virtuous than the elites who rule over them. The book leads up to what looks like a victory for labor and socialism, only to crash on the rocks of the First World War. The story is illuminated by profiles of remarkable personalities on both Left and Right, statesmen, rabble-rousers, and men of letters, who form a kind of gentlemen’s club above the fray of the times. As with most history, the story of the Common Man is lost in this discussion of distinguished individuals who claim to speak for him. Yet this is a remarkable book that fills in a crucial gap in my ongoing studies of Western Civilization.

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Apr 19 2012

King John by William Shakespeare

This play is surprisingly good for one of Shakespeare’s lesser known works. It is a story of shifting alliances and treachery in a world that is constantly uncertain. Surprisingly, a character known simply as “the Bastard,” who is surely fictional, is the central and most sympathetic character in the story, proving himself a pole of constancy and unbroken loyalty in an ever-changing and faithless world. King John himself is hardly sympathetic, but his enemies are hardly any more noble. This is a very short drama, but it packs a punch, and it seems to me unjustly overlooked among Shakespeare’s admittedly massive canon.

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Apr 15 2012

The Myth of Mental Illness by Thomas Szasz

Dr. Szasz seems to regard mental illness as a moral failure rather than a genuine illness, and he seems to think the mentally ill deserve judgment rather than treatment. Most mentally ill patients, he believes, are merely social misfits and malingerers rather than people suffering from a disease. His arguments are philosophical rather than scientific, but they are nevertheless somewhat cogent. Unfortunately, the mental illness he chiefly focuses is on is “hysteria,” which, as anyone who has looked at the DSM-IV knows, is merely one of hundreds of mental illnesses that afflict modern man. Moreover, his arguments seem to be chiefly a reaction against Freudian psychoanalysis, which mainstream modern psychiatry has already mostly discredited. Dr. Szasz’s case is not entirely without merit, but anyone who has been around someone with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or severe depression can tell that something is seriously wrong and that the illness is not imaginary. Wrong, Dr. Szasz.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2012/04/15/the-myth-of-mental-illness-by-thomas-szasz/

Apr 06 2012

Hollywood by Charles Bukowski

Before I discuss the book, a word about Bukowski. Bukowski has a way of making it seem that a life of sin is good for your soul and that people who live virtuous lives are dull people with dead souls. I am rather skeptical of this philosophy, but every time I read about his adventures with booze and women I tend to feel that I am missing something in life. Bukowski represents the realization of the fantasy most men have of saying fuck you to the system and the routine and getting away with it. This book is a memoir of the making of the movie Barfly, which he wrote the screenplay for and which is based on his early life. Bukowski has a well known contempt for Hollywood types, whom he considers phonies, hacks, hustlers, and hucksters, and his rendering of his immersion in this world is funny and memorable. And by the way, I have seen the movie: the book is better.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2012/04/06/hollywood-by-charles-bukowski/