Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time

Ms. Locke, my language tutor, gave me a special present this semester. During the week we would translate Flaubert's Un Coeur Simple at an accelerated pace in order to take Fridays off and read...Proust! It was the first book I had bought that I was not sure I wanted to own, for all other books are those I know from other sources or works of the same author; I'd buy anything of Plato and know I'd love it, for example.

I was nervous. Here I was with $17 worth of book and not at all sure I wanted it. So I read the first assignment, and predictably, was blown away. In Search of Lost Time is undoubtedly one of the greatest works of novel fiction I have ever read. Not only will I keep Swann's Way, but I will buy and read all other volumes of the seven-volume series, waiting until 2018 till the final volume of the new translation is released in the United States. This isn't as bad as it sounds (though copyright extensions truly anger me), since I likely won't read the next three volumes for at least some years.

How can I be the same after reading such beautiful meditations on experience, memory, and names? I will never look at the world the same again, nor underestimate my contribution to the way I experience the way things are.

"The places we have known do not belong solely to the world of space in which we situate them for our greater convenience. They were only a thin slice among contiguous impressions which formed our life at that time; the memory of a certain image is but regret for a certain moment; and houses, roads, avenues, are as fleeting, alas, as the years."

A Song of Ice and Fire

It's almost shocking how little modern, populist literature I read nowadays. Almost invariably this gives me pleasure; I am not a plebe in a coffee shop who thinks he's sophisticated for reading Chomsky and Vonnegut with the New York Times on the side. I hate the term 'sophisticated' anyway, having connotations of Subway lurking in my subconscious. But every now and then I hear of a book which captures my attention. A Game of Thrones caught my eye so on impulse I bought it from the bookstore.

My qualms are minor; atheists really shouldn't write about religion for their work is unconvincing, and Martin's style of "I'll-kill-off-major-characters-to-make-you-worried-about-the-ones-that-really matter" wearies the soul. I doubt Martin would be careless enough to kill Jon or Arya (my personal favorite) merely to flout the system. If he does, I shan't care for the series anymore, nor do I find his method to work for me; I merely become angry when the Young Wolf and his mother dies, and the enemy - and there is an enemy, despite what popular criticism would say - prevails.

But these are minor qualms. The writing is vigorous, gritty, and often dark, sometimes oppressively so. Occasionally I wish there were not quite so much graphic sex depicted, but few writers have written so evocatively of the North. The battles of the Wall, the freezing isolation, the perennial darkness; the honor, the courage of the Stark family, who could not love such things?

I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men.

Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination

I discovered The Stars My Destination through the unceasing and fervent recommendations of Ty Schintzius. He said it was the best science fiction novel he'd ever read. I ordered it for him and read it a few days later. Now I almost fully agree. Only a masterpiece like Dune could equal it, and Bester's work may top it anyway. Not surprisingly, the novel is ill-known; but in an age where the most-watched YouTube channel is some mid-adolescent squeaking in a chipmunk voice, one can expect little from hoi polloi. At any rate, novel is one giant F.U. to Tolstoy's War and Peace, for history is not a blind, unintelligible force; here, one man changes the future of all mankind. In the same vein, the novel is concerned with the understanding of man; what he is and what he may become. What it is that makes someone a man is still unclear, for Gully Foyle doesn't quite seem like a man (more like a wolf, oftentimes); thus, it seems Bester doesn't really answer these questions (yet, that is; more careful readings might reveal something later). But he does suggest that whatever man's true nature is (and perhaps it is more animalistic than we might expect), it is forever and always tied to greatness. 

Gully Foyle is my name

And Terra is my nation

Deep space is my dwelling place

The stars my destination.

Statement of Purpose

I have decided to alter this blog and update it more frequently. Each book I read shall from here on out be noted, and one or two key ideas derived from it acknowledged. The inspiration for this came from other book blogs out there, but there are few such sites with such a focus on classical texts and philosophy, in addition to fine literature. I shall fill this hole.

Book projects for now:

• Continue reading the Metaphysics, especially the central books, the fourth, and the twelfth. Read Aquinas' commentary.
• Finish Blood Meridian.
• Finish The Brothers Karamazov (why I have never finished such a masterpiece eludes me).
• Read volume two of the Icelandic Sagas.

My first focus will be on books I read on my own time, but seminar readings shall also make an appearance.

To kick it off, here is the first entry: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, State and Revolution. My first true foray into Communist thought. Crude, materialist Hegelianism at its worst, but an extremely informative reading on Communist theory. The progression from capitalism to communism is beautifully drawn, making it quite compelling even to one who despises Marxism as I do. Capitalism leads to revolution, then to the dictatorship of the proletariat, to socialism, and finally to pure communism. Lenin writes we cannot know how long each stage will last in this necessary historical dialectic, thus explaining why countries having Communist revolutions never seem to get beyond dictatorship.

Unfortunately, the feeling I had reading the short essay was one of unrelenting, oppressive, gray atmosphere. All was colorless and unlovely. This feeling alone suffices for my dislike of Marx and his ilk; there is no humor, no life in writings like these. Lenin was a good Marxist qua materialism so this does not really surprise me.

State and Revolution serves as an admirable introduction to Communist thought. I am interested in pursuing the topic further, and will read the Manifesto (of course!) and Marx's Revolutions of 1848, in addition to some of his more theoretical works. After all, one must know thine enemy, and Communism is little different from the Eastern despotism that so threatened Athens.

New Books, New Year

I did finally finish the Roman Catechism. It truly was the best introduction to Catholic thought I have yet read. Perhaps at some point I shall read the catechism from 1994, but I think no major doctrinal changes occurred over the past four hundred years. Perhaps I will check anyway.

Regardless, I am now in the last fortnight of my break. In ten days I shall fly back to Santa Fe and resume studies. During this time I wish to finish the Divine Comedy and Gulliver's Travels, the former on my perennial book list - it is the new year, after all - and the latter for seminar on the 19th. I hope to read the Iliad this or next month, which leaves the Republic or the Physics and The Lord of the Rings.

I have finished the Inferno and the first part of Gulliver's Travels. I like Dante much better than Swift (who can be so scientific about fantasy? It is amusing but tedious), but perhaps I have always preferred his theme to satire - man's search for God is the most important thing on this earth, and few have treated it as powerfully as the Ghibelline poet.