Book List!

I have lots of books to read this semester and summer. Let's make list, shall we? In order to proceed, I must state the reading goals I have:

First, I must read Don Quixote. This should not be difficult, for I can likely read it in a fortnight. I then hope to read some more Aristotle and Plato, and begin an introduction to Kant and thus the Enlightenment. So: Theaetetus, Republic, and Phaedrus will comprise my Plato readings. Politics, Ethics, On the Soul, and Metaphysics will be more than sufficient Aristotle, Prolegomena to Future Metaphysics for Kant, Dune and Starship Troopers will be my fun/science fiction reading, and maybe a Greek Tragedy I haven't read, or some more Shakespeare.

This list is more than enough, and I likely won't finish it. My highest priorities will be The Republic, Politics, On the Soul, and Prolegomena, after I have finished Don Quixote. I will be more than satisfied if I can do that, and I would very much like to reread the Nichomachean Ethics and finally finish Menger's Principles of Economics. Let's put this in prioritized bullet form:

• Don Quixote
• Prolegomena to Future Metaphysics
• Nicomachean Ethics
• Politics
• Republic
• Principles of Economics
  
• Theaetetus
• On the Soul
• Dune
  
• Starship Troopers
  

That said, let's finish Phaedrus and Metaphysics this semester, and we'll see what the summer brings.

One Down, Three to Go

I knocked off the Physics just before spring break. I enjoyed it far more than last year and understood it far better, though I only grasp a minority of his arguments. Surely it is a book that will grow with my intellect, which is not yet strong enough to comprehend it fully. I also finished On the Soul, which, in two guerilla seminars, absolutely floored me. The concept of soul and mind have never been so expertly treated. The tripartate Aristotelian soul came alive for me, and I've loved every second of it. I'm now tackling his Metaphysics, which is absolutely delicious. To be honest, I'm still not understanding all his arguments, so like the prequel, it will have to be read and reread as I strengthen my intellect. I wish to finish it soon, and begin the Nicomachean Ethics and finally the Politics, both of which are easier than his theoretical works. 

However, my time has not been solely Aristotle. I have reread the Prydain series series by Lloyd Alexander and Orthodoxy by Chesterton, and even a new DragonLance book by Weis and Hickman. I picked up Pride and Prejudice again, but quickly set it down. How it got onto the Program is beyond me, but I will never venture that view outside this blog - I haven't finished it yet and most of the girls would probably tear me to shreds were I to pose such a...controversial view. But pose it I must. She's nice, and Flannery O'Conner is okay, but compare them to Plato? Forget it! Are they even worthy to be studied alongside the ancients? I wonder.

At any rate, I continue to plug away at the Metaphysics and I will try to finish Dune.

Forth Eorlingas!

I grew up on Tolkien. Dad read The Hobbit aloud when I was just a wee lad, and I shivered hearing Riddles in the Dark. I heard The Lord of the Rings read aloud from when I was nine or so till I was twelve, and then I began reading them on my own. I read them every year for five years. Two or three years ago I stopped, and save for a devouring of The Hobbit, my Tolkien reading was stinted. 

I fixed that last month. The final two days of break I began the first book, The Fellowship of the Ring. I devoured it (a verb I use frequently with respect to Tolkien) in a few readings, and borrowed the entire volume from Greenfield Library. I finished The Return of the King yesterday. 

What a magnificent piece of storytelling! No other author can move me to awe, tears, and laughter in less than ten pages! Reading about the Riders of Rohan hurtling to their doom at Minis Tirith and the death of Theoden, weeping over Eowyn, and laughing at Merry and Aragorn (if you do not laugh at the chapter "Houses of Healing" you need a new sense of humor) has never meant so much to me. I have seldom identified more with character than in Middle-Earth. Once again I will put The Lord of the Rings on the top of my permanent reading list, the List whose constituents fit on one numbering hand; so far the Bible and Dante's Commedia are on it, but this is the third. 

Tolkien also reminded me why I love good writing and great literature. I doubt I shall ever read Rowling's work ever again - there is simply nothing there. Any urge I could have towards her work is met fuller and deeper by far in The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Unifinished Tales, and Silmarillion. Even her fourth book, which I think was the best of the lot, holds little interest now. A nice story, but not much there. Thus I rededicate myself to the book I loved as a child. It is inexhaustible; rather, it has grown with me, and I think it shall continue to do so. Farewell, Middle-Earth! I will see you in my dreams, and ride with Theoden as a Rider of Rohan. Forth Eorlingas!

Second Semester, Aristotle

I am reading a lot of Aristotle this semester. I wish to devour his Physics, Metaphysics, and On the Soul. I did not understand the first two last year, a sad fact I wish to straighten. It will take a tremendous amount of work, but I am willing to do it.

Second semester of Sophomore year is the Poetry Semester. Almost everything we read is English lyric poetry or Shakespeare. We read eight plays, one of which (King Lear) we study in Language, and study his sonnets and early English poetry like Wyatt and Spenser. We also read the Commedia, a tremendous literary achievement from Dane Alighieri.

I am terribly excited. My studies of poetry have sucked, though I have (I think) always rather appreciated it, if you will consider my childhood and my Language Arts classes in eighth grade and first two years of high school. Now I will read the majority of the Shakespeare corpus and become intimately familiar with a few of his sonnets, two of which I will memorize. And Dante! Glorious Dante! Chaucer! Poetry! I will let my dialectic-loving side relax a little and enjoy myself. After all, I will be studying Aristotle's Logic in Language and reading his two greatest treatises. Poetry is good for the soul. I will never enjoy it so much as straight up philosophy or theology (Aquinas is a river of gold!), but I certainly hold it in the highest respect.

Menger and Economics

I am beginning Carl Menger's Principles of Economics. This is the formative text of the Austrian School, and, I believe, the formative text of all logos-rooted economics. Menger's theory of utility and value, while still influential, have been overcome in the West by the doctrines of Keynes; specifically his General Theory. (that work I shall read, but only after finishing Principles, Human Action, Socialism, and Theory of Money and Credit) Menger roots his theories in Aristotle's reasoning that humans act towards their perceived happiness, and this principle is the only assumption that the Austrians make. Any theory of state, economics,or regulation is grounded ultimately in human action.

I personally love Menger's prose. He is clear, methodical, and precise. Everything comes under his grasp in his little book that shook the "classical" school to its roots. Ever after, however discredited his theories become, his and the Austrian's School remains in my opinion the only reasonable and consistent method of thought with respect to economics.

Too many people do not study economics and thus are easily seduced by the promises of the socialist state. Menger and Mises obliterate this state in their writings and lay out the case for laissez faire government, stronger than anything I've ever read. Their writings are the foremost reason I abandoned the conservative camp and joined the libertarians, at least in name. After coming to St. John's and reading The Republic and Thucydides, I became convinced that man's problem is moral, not political problem and thus cannot be solved by means of politics. Whether it is a socialist utopia or a free-market paradise man's problem - injustice - remains. Socialism is inefficient and ultimately totalitarian, but capitalism, when untempered by morality, will consume itself. Man's problem may be solved by Christ and his Church alone. Thus I will work to that end and abandon politics. In the meantime I will enjoy Menger, Mises, and Rothbard.

Bit Off More Than I Could Chew

You knew that already, of course. I tried to translate the book of Romans, read Thucydides, Aristotle, and Plato, but I only got through most of the Gorgias and part of De Anima. I will still work on the latter, but I'll try and read Thucydides over the fall semester, and I'm translating I Corinthians 13.

I must try harder to set attainable goals for myself - it's depressing to fail so often. But which is it - that I bit off more than I could chew or I'm just lazy?

Macdonald and Lewis

I finished all the Chesterton I'm likely to finish save for a few more pages in his Heretics. After that I really need to read his Orthodoxy, but you knew that already. Blake Edwards said that book nearly caused him to join the Roman Catholic Church (too bad it didn't fully accomplish that goal), so it's gotta be pretty good. I've read his Everlasting Man which I love greatly. His prose in general is like a good thick meal. It is rich prose, rich as plumcake. Yet its imagery is bold and riveting even when it seems opaque as mud.

I made the jump and purchased Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia the other month because I am nineteen and am required to own his septilogy. There is no excuse for a reader of my stature to be without such essential Lewis. His prose is very, very fine and he is a spectacular storyteller as well. The magic of The Horse and His Boy will never lose its charm for me, or The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I devoured most of the Chronicles in a few days and moved on to Lewis' inspiration: George Macdonald, who deserves a paragraph all to himself.

Now George Macdonald is a very different author than Lewis or Tolkien. He predated them, for one thing, but you wouldn't (at least I didn't) notice that too much. His prose is a bit more archaic and formal, most recognizable in his adult fiction and the Curdie books, but his writing...oh! his writing! He was an absolute master of the mythopoeic 'genre', or rather: he creates myth, much like the ancients created their myth. Now if anyone truly knows me, he would know that that is the highest compliment I can give a work of fiction, that it be mythlike in nature. Cut short, I believe that myths are one of God's way of revealing himself to his highest creation along with reason, the Greeks, and his own revelations. And Macdonald does this myth writing better than any man I have yet met; his dreamlike, wandering prose so affects me that I plunge into his books like none other. I devoured Lilith in only a few days and I'm absolutely tearing into Phantastes. And they are amazing to me. It's not so much the 'plot' (as a purely literary author, perhaps Macdonald is not even third best in my mind) as the sequence of events, the essence of any myth, not the words. To paraphrase Lewis, if the myth could be told in colors or images, it would hold every bit as much power.

There is my rambling about Macdonald. Now I really need to finish De Anima before I read it in seminar in the fall, and I would like to get through most of the Old Testament - I'm currently in I Samuel (and the 1611 KJV is a real treat, let me assure you). In other words, I have a lot to read, but at least I have time in which to read.

Wish me luck!