Writes Sebastian Castillo, in "The Secret to Getting Through Big, Dense, Difficult Books/Learning is painful, pleasant and, above all, communal" (NYT).
The book club's first book was Spinoza's "Ethics." Castillo sums it up: "The book’s argument, supposedly, is that everything one needs for salvation is already at hand."
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28 comments:
I was really interested right up to the part about gender being a construct, then I remembered why I have twice tried book clubs, and twice quickly quit them. I lack perseverance when it comes to suffering fools.
This post is worthy of the "lightweight religion" tag.
"Deep and difficult", eh? For me, that was a 2-inch tome entitled Fundamental Electro-magnetics.
If their first choice was Spinoza, unless they dial it down to Oprah altitude, they may get to a second, but certainly not a third book in the "Club".
My Five brothers and I all read the same copy of Ron Chernow's big, dense, difficult biography: 'Grant'.
Holidays for us means swapping bags of books. Sometimes you'll get one of yours back. Clears out the shelf of deadwood, and saves on bullshit present buying.
Is that a book club?
The calculus book we had at West Point was called "The Black Death." It was known for the phrase "The solution to the problem is intuitively obvious to the casual observer."
No. It wasn't.
That book was the downfall of many cadets.
@Joe Bar
We used to call Organic Chemistry the "Killing Fields" of pre-med undergrads.
Ethics is the theory of moral relativity a liberal religion.
I didn't read the article, but this might be the equivalent of office workers going to the gym. Life is no longer that challenging intellectually. When's the last time anyone worked out a figure using long division instead of a calculator?.......I read Borges in Spanish for the same reason I go on long walks and eat leafy greens. I don't know if it's all that life enhancing, but it serves a prophylactic purpose..
@Money Manger.
I know. I took Orgo with hopes of going to Med school. Another big discriminator. I got a B+ IIRC, which was pretty good, at that time, at that school.
I like the idea and have been craving the same— as an antidote to swimming in the shallows all day. A long time ago I read War and Peace with a group— and it was life changing. You cannot read War and Peace without coming away a Believer: in the One, Transcendant God— not the god in Spinoza’s image.
Lord, I feel as if I need this desperately. I no longer read any books except my one book club book each month, when I used to read voraciously. Aside from that one, always-lame book a month, I only read short form (largely this blog, these days). I feel my brain cells dying ...
"I have a chance to dedicate myself, among friends, toward material that requires sincere mental devotion,"
I'm currently teaching myself general relativity. Don't have any friends joining me, however.
The book club's first book was Spinoza's "Ethics." Castillo sums it up: "The book’s argument, supposedly, is that everything one needs for salvation is already at hand."
I saw that movie. "There's no place like home. There's no place like home."
Having some time on my hands upon retirement, and the weather not conducive to golf, I undertook to read Eric Neumann's "The History and Origins of Consciousness." This was based on the recommendations of Jordan Peterson, and a similar desire to test and exercise my faculties.
A lesson learned. Yeesh. What was comprehensible, I found to be tendentious speculation "supported" by numerous footnotes simply making unexplained reference to what are apparently the similarly speculative theories and conclusions of other Jungian acolytes, taking extreme liberties and making quantum leaps regarding purported meanings and connections, with scant archeological evidence remaining from millennia long past. (I gave up about 1/3 of the way through).
I still find Peterson's inquiries into human consciousness, religion, popular culture and philosophy to be fascinating and entertaining, but I frankly lost a little respect for him based on his citation of Neumann as a primary and accessible "authority." Perhaps it is the nature of psychology and philosophy to speculate, but let's not pretend that there is anything scientific about it.
I do believe that the exercise was good for my softening brain, although it unfortunately provided support for my skeptical and cynical side rather than my hopeful and optimistic side. Good thing I have the Althouse blog to keep me sane!
Of course salvation is always at hand because ultimately it doesn't exist in this mortal coil we call life. I find that the abandonment of Hope is what keeps me so exuberantly positive.
Working a full-time gig in retail for the past year and a quarter has sharpened my mind body and soul. At 65, I feel like I'm in my thirties again.
"Just call me, Al."
At 72, and after three tries spanning decades, I have concluded that "War and Peace" is a closed book to me. Given my interests, you would think it a natural, but there you go.
Life is too short.
I can say i skimmed the annotated version it is a rather rich manuscript
I tried my best with swanns way (python was right)
"I like easy things too ...I’ve found, as I have grown older, the world has incrementally foisted upon me a preponderance of quick and simple easiness; it’s inescapable."
A few days ago I traded my 2015 Toyota for a similar model 2021 Toyota via Carvana. It's getting delivered tomorrow. Not having to deal with salesmen, in the confort of my own bedroom, making comparisons, looking up vin numbers, I wanted a light color outside, dark color inside. It was so easy, I'm starting to think it may not be more popular because the used-car sales industry is probably against it.
I read a lot of history for pleasure. And there are also historical novels. I've read the first two books in Sinkiewicz's Polish Trilogy. The man does go on--and on--and on. The trilogy focuses on Polish Lithuanian history from 1648 to 1675. There are lots of historical figures-. The style is sort of a mix of the Three Musketeers and Sir Walter Scott. There are heroes, villains, young maidens and their cavaliers etc. The novels were written in Polish and translated to English by a masochist in New England circa 1890. I read on Kindle. On these very long novels it's like wrestling. If I was reading in hard copy I could see the end in sight--on Kindle not so much. Still and all the novels are entertaining.
Tolstoy is not an easy read but I read "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina" in college the first time in a Russian Lit course and at a time I was a voracious reader. Not sure I would have the patience to do so today but I did reread both when I was in my 30s and appreciated both quite a bit more than I did as an 18 year old.
Is watching a movie now, like reading a book when I was younger? I'm not well read. I did watch a fair amount of movies when I was younger. Now watching a movie is something of a chore. Maybe I should try reading a book and see what that's like.
How to Read Difficult Books. One page (or even paragraph) at a time and give the mind time to digest. Even if you never finish the book, your mind is better fed.
Or as Wendell Berry put it, "Everything we need is here."
If you’d like to read good difficult books, I recommend The Catherine Project (Google it: Blogspot won’t let me link). Weekly Zoom seminars of 1.5 or 2 hours with 10-15 people discussing one or more books or movies. Lots of choices. As it happens, they just announced their Spring schedule: click on ‘General Offerings’. Deadline is a week from tomorrow, the 28th. Don’t count on getting your first choice: demand exceeds supply. But there are so many interesting choices, I’ve never found that a problem. See you there, maybe?
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