CHAPTER 11

I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT,
AND DON'T LIKE IT

Good on you Dickens. I don't think I've ever read a chapter heading and smiled as I did :)

...what we ordinarily call friends & friendships are nothing but acquaintanceships...in the friendship I speak of, our souls mingle and blend with each other so completely that they efface the seam that joined them...If you press me to tell why I loved him, I feel that this cannot be expressed, except by answering: Because it was he, because it was I.

(from "Of friendship", Book I, Essay 28)

#coffeeandabook #montaigne #essays #classics

Life can be painful, confusing. Finding your own way & your own place in this life, with a million distractions promising enlightenment, and a million more promising escape. I think The Essays are slowly becoming a refuge for me - not to blindly accept what he says, but as a conversation. His essays are steeped in study & experience. Reading Montaigne, although it takes work, I'm finding that I can - and should - be my own captain in rough waters.

#coffeeandabook #charlesdickens

Been a long, dirty week. I relish these easy-chair Saturday mornings, when I hear nothing but my office clock and the wind outside.

But the best parts are my coffee and a book :)

...it takes a lot of self-love and presumption to have such esteem for one's own opinions that to establish them one must overthrow the public peace and introduce so many inevitable evils, and such a horrible corruption of morals...and introduce them into one's own country.

No one dies before his time. The time you leave behind was no more yours than that which passed before your birth...wherever your life ends, it is all there. The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some men have lived long, and lived little; attend to it while you are in it. It lies in your will, not in the number of years, for you to have lived enough.

(from "That to philosophize is to learn to die", Book I, Essay 20)

Enjoying Dickens's writing so far, especially the humor that comes from looking at the adult world through a child's eyes. But I have to say, there's been a lot of instances of crying in these first few chapters... Especially David's mother, Mrs. Peggotty & Mrs. Gummidge. Everyone is bemoaning their treatment or their lot. Just an observation :)

...let us learn to meet [death] steadfastly and combat it...to begin to strip it of its greatest advantage against us...let us rid it of its strangeness, come to know it, get used to it...and let us never allow ourselves to be so carried away by pleasure that we do not sometimes remember in how many ways this happiness of ours is a prey to death...it is uncertain where death awaits us; let us await it everywhere.

Happy the man who has regulated his needs in such just measure that his wealth can satisfy them without his care and trouble...and without it interrupting his pursuit of other occupations better suited to him...each man is as well or as badly off as he thinks he is.

I must admit, once I learned the plot outlines, I considered the initial parts of the novel fun but more ridiculous than the James Bond movies.

But as the novel progressed, and especially at the climax, Trevanian (pen name of Rodney Whitaker) surprised me, imbuing the story with a pathos and grittiness I didn't expect. Some plot and character contrivances aside, it still is a spy novel worthy of a slow weekend's worth of time.

Recommended.

Anger at things that happen shows small wit;
For all our wrath concerns them not a bit.

(author unknown)

Francis Bacon once said that "...some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few are to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention."

I believe I have embarked on a work of the third type, and I know it will take a long while to finish. But when that day comes, that book will truly be mine.

We owe subjection...to all kings, for that concerns their office; but we do not owe esteem... Let us make this concession to the political order: to suffer them patiently if they are unworthy, by commending their indifferent actions if their authority needs our support. But, our dealings over, it is not right to deny to justice and to our liberty the expression of our true feelings.

"Robust virility was projected through every detail of Ben's face, from the thick, close-cropped silver hair to the broad leathery face that looked as though it had been designed by Hormel and shaped with a dull saber."

Started this morning!

First impression: A Southern "society woman" seemingly content on the outside is perhaps dying inside. The world around her seems all proper, straight, satisfying & cold, but something iconoclastic & real is burning inside of Mrs. Edna Pontellier.

Wonderful story & characters in a setting that the author knows intimately well, painting a picture of life through the seasons, seen through souls whose eyes move through the grasses of the down, and whose perceptions are formed from a physical place where only a human's foot passes. Although I took issue with what I saw as some character-based contrivances, they just didn't mute the novel's impact, especially in its epilogue. Recommended.

"You look hungry," said Hazel to the cat. "Rats getting too clever, I suppose?"

The cat made no reply...[it] crouched almost flat on the ground, thrusting its head forward between its front paws...[then it] began to lash its tail. Its hindquarters lifted & wagged from side to side in mounting excitement.

"Can you run?" said Hazel. "I think not. Why, you pop-eyed, back-door saucer-scraper--"

The cat flung itself across the yard...

Some authors make you feel you're in expert hands. Richard Adams is one of them. The lives of rabbits, the rhythm of the downs. As I read, it's amazing how I've come to view these "boring" things: with wonder & danger, as they do. It is their world. The characters betray relatable qualities like courage, ego & recklessness - but above all, the compulsion to keep moving, keep living. This is a novel full of life, and I'm moving forward with it.

When we think of the downs, we think of the downs in daylight, as we think of a rabbit with its fur on...we take daylight for granted. But moonlight is another matter. It is inconstant...it serves no necessity...it transforms...and its low intensity...makes us conscious that it is something added to the down, to give it, for only a little time, a singular and marvelous quality that we should admire while we can, for soon it will be gone again.

...elsewhere men talk of public good, but look after their private good...in Utopia, where all possessions are in common, everyone is certain that, provided that care is taken to keep the public barns full, everyone will have whatever he wants for his private use. For there is no unfair distribution of property, there are no paupers or beggars there, and though no one has anything, yet all are rich.

A important work, from 1516 no less. Not to be tasted, but "chewed and digested" as Bacon would say. The author not only wishes us to compare actual societies against an ideal one, but if a more "communal" could even come to exist from purposeful human agency. In this American election year, it's all the more important to ask what kind of society we want & why. Not an easy read. But like most difficult tasks, it pays dividends. Recommended.

"Men could no more live without iron than without fire and water, though nature has given no use to gold and silver, which we might not easily go without, if man's folly had not put a price upon scarceness."

Not a blurb, per se. Just a picture of me & my reading buddy this morning.

Last time I read this was my junior year in high school in an Hon. English class, 28 years ago. High time for a revisit, written by the Man For All Seasons, Sir Thomas More. Coffee? Check! Let's begin...

Although not the first dystopian novel to tackle ideals like perfection, individuality, freedom & choice, Levin keeps it exciting, with a plot that The Matrix franchise could have taken cues from. Rather than a fantastical story in a conventional setting (i.e. Levin's Stepford Wives), TPD is a more conventional story told in a fantastical setting. Still, as Stephen King suggested of Levin, it's all put together like a Swiss watch. Recommended.

His various letters are illuminating, his Philippic against Antony is furious & damning, and his expositions on Duties & Old Age are still relevant today. The style in his written letters & essays may be more accessible to modern readers than his speeches, which can get long in the tooth. But stick with it. As a window into Ancient Rome & into the mind of the most celebrated orator of his time, his insight is still penetrating & meaningful.

"Life's course is invariable - nature has one path only, and you cannot travel along it more than once. Every stage of life has its own characteristics: boys are feeble, youths in their prime are aggressive, middle-aged men are dignified, old people are mature. Each one of these qualities is ordained by nature for harvesting in due season." - from On Old Age

"Consider the paradox of a person who admits the wickedness of tyrannizing a country....but who nevertheless sees advantage in himself becoming its tyrant if he can....Who, in God's name, could possibly derive advantage from murdering his country? Of all murders that is the most hideous...even when its perpetrator is hailed, by the citizens he has trodden underfoot, as 'Father of his Country'."

"So everyone ought to have the same purpose: to identify the interest of each with the interest of all. Once men grab for themselves, human society will completely collapse."

"...neglect of the common interest is unnatural, because it is unjust... nature's law promotes and coincides with the common interest."

So even in Cicero's day, "competition [was] the law of the jungle, but cooperation [was] the law of civilization." (Pyotr Kropotkin)

"For honesty is not particularly virtuous when there is no one with the ability or ambition to corrupt it."

Although it helps to know at least a little of the historical & philosophical context of Voltaire's slim work, it still drives its point home pretty well. We will never have all the answers that we seek. So is the world we live in, with all its good & suffusive evil still the best of all possible worlds? Or is it the worst due to the free will of humanity succumbing to boredom, vice, & need?

Who cares? You have a garden to cultivate. Get to it.

"Let us work without theorizing...'tis the only way to make life endurable."

Is it misguided or wrongheaded to think that - to some degree - the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants could conceivably have been somewhat inspired by this book's protagonist, Candide?

"Neuromancer" is an acquired taste. You will get a bare minimum of exposition and either put it back on the shelf or let go, letting it take you along its dizzying course. The story pulses with neon action atop a subtle undercurrent of humanity. The beating heart is always there, however muted. "Neuromancer" is rewarding if you persevere, surrender and succumb to its world, which not all (understandably) will be willing to do.

"The conversation seemed to be interesting and he remained there, waiting for an opportunity to express his own ideas, as young people are so fond of doing." - Book I, Chapter 2

(from the late Grisostomo's poem of lament)

What better burial for a lover dead?
Despairing song of mine, do not complain,
Nor let our parting cause thee any pain,
For my misfortune is not wholly bad,
Seeing her fortune's bettered by my demise.
Then, even in the grave, be thou not sad.

(from Part 1, Chapter 14; my Kobo being propped up by Doubleday's Complete O. Henry works, which will be kind of my dessert 😁)

Reading the Putnam translation of Don Quixote. Going to finish this time. Interruptions abound when you're a father of four. But the kids are graduating high school, life is changing. As long as I can keep my hungry brain focused on one book! Using my Kobo this time around.

I shouldn't wonder at all if my uncle, after he has been cured of this chivalry sickness, reading one of these books, should take it into his head to....what is worse, become a poet, which they say is an incurable disease and one that is very catching.

(Melville, the sailor, comparing "civilized" peoples and indigenous islanders) A high degree of refinement, however, does not seem to subdue our wicked propensities so much after all; and were civilization itself to be estimated by some of its results, it would seem perhaps better for what we call the barbarous part of the world to remain unchanged. - from Chapter 3 of "Typee: A Peep At Polynesian Life"

(Fiver had just helped save his companion Bigwig from a deadly snare even after Bigwig's open hostility toward him. Fiver finally convinces the others to move on.)

Fiver sank down into the grass. Bigwig, still trailing his horrible, smooth peg, staggered up to him and touched his nose with his own.

"I'm still alive, Fiver," he said. "So are all of us. You've bitten through a bigger peg than this one I'm dragging. Tell us what to do."

New novel reading has commenced!

What will happen? Where will this journey take them? Will they make it to their new home? How will the journey test & change them all?

So begins the story of the 11 rabbits who left Sandleford Warren: Hazel, Fiver, Blackberry, Dandelion, Pipkin, Hawkbit, Bigwig, Buckthorn, Speedwell, Acorn & Silver.

As a reader I'm anxious along with them. But what would you do if you no longer had a home?

One final irony: The French emperor, who had successfully escaped death time and again from Prussian, Russian, British, Austrian, German, Italian, and Spanish artillery, muskets, swords, and bayonets, had been killed by his closest chosen companion - a Frenchman.

The more I read this biography, the more I feel I'm missing out. Lots of battles, court intrigues, and the central vanity of essentially a megalomaniac. It just feels as if I'm getting shut out of the humanity of the immediate, and the sweep of the grand view. Not saying Schom is necessarily wrong, but so much time is spent accentuating Napoleon's costly yet unquenchable thirst for conquest. It simply doesn't make for a balanced meal by itself.

"... Nothing so annihilates the present as that which kills the future." - Pierre François Réal, on Napoleon's propensity to sabotage potential for real change in France due to his wars of conquest.

Covers most if not all current RHCE exam objectives, but arguably not in a depth that may (or really may not) be required for the exam. Author also is rather gushing in his encouragement for the reader, occasionally bordering on cloying. No practice exams either. Still, an effective tool for those candidates who wish a more streamlined self-study course.

Great princes can commit great crimes - it is expected of them.

(from Chapter 15, "The Foreign Minister")

It's a fascinating read so far. The egos, the machinations, the lies, the wars, the money, the power, and at the center of it all is the "Emperor" himself. It has been a while since I've read a biography. The only thing I am finding irritating - almost tiresome - is the frequent editorial jabs against Napoleon. I would agree with the author; I just wish he'd let the primary sources speak more for themselves. Have you experienced this?

I yield to no one as a champion of the Southern soldier wherever he may have fought and in whatever army, and I do not think I shall be charged more now than in war-time with "underestimating the enemy." Honor to all!

Life being so busy, it's sometimes hard to get into a book, especially those that are considered "difficult". Reading this novel, I at first thought it was somewhat impenetrable, but then it started to have a kaleidoscopic cadence, a colourful poetry, a beauty that my mind subtly settled into. Maybe that's the way it is with some "hard" books: just steal some time, silence, and a quiet but open mind, and suddenly things just might flow...

Their invaders were a long time in conquering them; and now, after four centuries of Christianity, they still pray in Tanoan to the old deities of the earth and sky and make their living from the things that are and have always been within their reach...They have assumed the names and gestures of their enemies, but have held on to their own, secret souls; and in this there is a resistance and an overcoming, a long outwaiting.