The Palace of Books by Roger Grenier

When I first heard about Roger Grenier and his latest work, The Palace of Books, I was certainly intrigued.  When I first looked at this book-length essay, I lost some of my enthusiasm, but I began to read with my rule of fifty in the forefront of my mind.  As I neared that “line in the text,” I began to understand Grenier’s ideas, so I accelerated onto the end.  Grenier has written a thoroughly enjoyable analysis of literature for readers and writers.  He organizes this essay – not by genre, time period, author, or country – but by ideas.  He weaves a wonderful tapestry connecting various works dating back to the ancient Greeks and Chinese all the way into the 20^th century.  He seems to effortlessly draw examples from the library of his mind.

This slim volume will appeal to anyone interested in reading and/or writing.  He deftly connects quite a few dozen works of literature, because they demonstrate the continuity of devices writers use to accomplish or abandon their intentions in a particular work.  Each chapter poses an idea then takes the reader on a whirl-wind tour of authors who have tackled that problem, or, in some cases, those unable to avoid the inevitable because of death, or worse writer’s block.

My favorite chapter is “Private Life.”  Grenier introduces each chapter of the essay with a question.  For example, “Is knowing the private life of an author important for understanding his or work” (56).  I have always believed the answer to be yes, because the author’s life provides a context for the work.  It may or may not help in the understanding, but at least it becomes a piece of the puzzle.  Grenier seems more concerned with how much weight a reader places on this information.  He writes, “As long as you have not asked yourself a certain number of questions about an author and answered them satisfactorily, if only for your private benefit and sotto voce, you cannot be sure of possessing him [or her] entirely.  And this is true, though these questions may seem to be altogether foreign to the nature of his [or her] writings” (56).  So we agree, at least in part.

Roger quotes Chekhov’s Notebook, “How pleasant it is to respect people!  When I see books, I am not concerned with how the authors loved or played cards; I only see their marvelous works” (58).  He then quotes J.B. Pontalis, who “suggests with a touch of malice that Proust and Freud […] don’t want their own private lives examined: if Proust’s perversion of torturing rats was discovered” (59).  Sometimes this obsession with privacy can have tragic effects.  I recall the destruction of an unfinished novel and the diary of Emily Brontë by her sister Charlotte.  What treasures have we lost?  Should we Google J.B. Pontalis to find out who he is?  I did.  He also quotes a mysterious person I could not identify, known only as “Aragon,” who wrote, “My instinct, whenever I read, is to look constantly for the author, and to find him, to imagine him writing, to listen to what he says, not what he tells; so in the end, the usual distinctions among the literary genres – poetry, novel, philosophy, maxims – all strike me as insignificant” (60).  I am with “young Aragon of 1922.”  Grenier adds, “One retreats into oneself in order to communicate better with others” (61).  If the book has a flaw, it might be the lack of any reference to some of the more obscure writers he mentions.

 Finally, Grenier writes, “If I were asked what a literary creation amounts, to, I would say that it’s about choosing among past or present realities.  Faced with a character or a story, you say to yourself, ‘that one is for me, that one isn’t for me.’  By that I mean it does or doesn’t correspond to my sensibility, my way of understanding life, and finally to an esthetic, to a certain music that emanates from that esthetic.  Memory obviously goes along with choosing and doubtless has already made its own choice” (67).  Amen.

For an interesting tour of literature and a literary mind, I highly recommend The Palace of Books by Roger Grenier.  5 stars

--Chiron, 12/16/14

A Happy Death & The Stranger by Albert Camus

On November 7, 1913, Albert Camus was born in Algeria.  He attended at the University of Algiers, where he was goalkeeper for the university team.  He contracted tuberculosis in 1930.   He completed his Bachelor’s Degree philosophy in 1935, and in May 1936, he successfully presented his master’s thesis on Neo-Platonism and Christian Thought.  During the war Camus joined theFrench Resistance cell Combat, which published an underground newspaper of the same name.  This group worked against the Nazis, and in it Camus assumed the nom de guerre Beauchard.  Camus became the paper's editor in 1943.  He met John-Paul Sartre at the dress rehearsal of Sartre's play, The Flies, in June 1943.  When the Allies liberated Paris in August 1944, Camus witnessed and reported the last of the fighting.  Camus won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957.  In the words of the committee, he received the award for "for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times."

I have long admired Camus for his thoughtful, provocative, and stimulating novels.  The Stranger and The Plague frequently appear on college reading lists in world literature and great books classes.  This review will depart somewhat from my usual reviews, because Camus is a serious writer with a decidedly philosophical bent.   While Camus is frequently associated with Existentialism, he rejected this label.  He broke with his friend Sartre over several issues, but Sartre’s nihilism topped the list.  Camus believed that life itself was much too valuable to throw away.  He once wrote, “Your duty is to live and be happy.”

The posthumously published A Happy Death foreshadows the work he is most known for, The Stranger.  As notes in the book reveal, the main difference between A Happy Death and The Stranger lies in the fact that Camus the man is much more present in the former work than the latter.  

I first encountered Camus back in the 70s.  The prose mesmerized me and drove me to dig deeper into his life. 

In Happy Death he wrote: “Summer crammed the harbor with noise and sunlight.  It was eleven thirty.  The day split open down the middle, crushing the docks under the burden of its heat.  Moored at the sheds of the Algiers Municipal Depot, black-hulled, red-chimneyed freighters were loading sacks of wheat.  Their dusty fragrance mingled with the powerful smell of tar melting under a hot sun.  Men were drinking at a little stall that reeked of creosote and anisette, while some Arab acrobats in red shirts somersaulted on the scorching flagstones in front of the sea in the leaping light” (8).  This reflects Camus’ memory of the working class district he lived in and his job with the maritime commission.  

The Stranger and Happy Death deal with a murder by the main character, Patrice Merseult.  While there are similarities, substantial differences also separate the two stories.  Camus expert, Roger Quillot explicated these differences.  He wrote, “Mersault is … the younger brother of Mersault’ [in The Stranger] (165).  Another critic Jean Sarocchi asserts that Happy Death is a “prefiguration of The Stranger.”  This view is based on the comparison of the structure of the two texts.

Thought-provoking, intriguing, splendidly written, Camus’ work validates the judgment of the Nobel Literature Prize committee.  5 stars.

--Chiron, 10-13-13

Mortality by Christopher Hitchens

Mortality, Christopher Hitchens’s essays on his slow walk to death, all have an air of seriousness, of course, but a vein of humor runs through them like a stream of cool water. I read this 104-page gem in a single sitting. The book includes a forward by Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, for whom Hitchens wrote for many years, and an Afterword by his wife, Carol Blue.

According to her, “Hitch” – as his friends and readers affectionately knew him – wrote up until the end. In fact, the main point of the book is about the importance of writing. His greatest fear seemed to be the loss of this ability. During the final stages, speech became almost impossible, but he kept writing away. The last chapter consists of fragments, which “seem to trail off, but in fact were written on his computer in bursts of energy and enthusiasm as he sat in the hospital using his food tray for a desk” (103) as Carol Blue says.

Hitch gave some advice to writing students, which I have shared with my writing classes. He would begin, “by saying that anybody who could talk could also write. Having cheered them up with this easy-to-grasp ladder, I then replaced it with a huge and loathsome snake: ‘How many people in the class, would you say, can talk? I mean really talk?’ This had its duly woeful effect.” He then added this advice: “Avoid stock expressions (like the plague, as William Safire used to say) and repetitions. … So, this above all: Find your own voice” (50).

He wrote on an incredibly wide variety of topics, but I did not always agree with him, particularly in regard to his support of the Iraq War; however, I always loved his prose, his way with words, his humor, and his evident love of the English language. Mortality is a sad good bye to and from Hitch.

Reading this meditation upon his impending death, inspired me to dig into the recently published mammoth, Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens. At nearly a thousand pages, it contains well over a hundred of his essays. I would rarely sit down and begin reading something like this from cover to cover, so I devised a plan -- an homage -- to Hitch. Starting on Sunday, September 16, 2012, I read one essay every night before bed. It will take more than three months, but that will be my own meditation on the loss of one of the great writers and orators of the 20th and 21st centuries. 5 stars

--Chiron, 9/22/12

Free Will by Sam Harris

I have admired the work of Sam Harris since his first book, The End of Faith, and his second, Letter to a Christian Nation. His last, The Moral Landscape, was a bit more difficult, but all three books shared one thing in common: they were all extremely thought-provoking. Free Will is no exception.

This slim volume examines the decisions we make and asks the question, “Are we really free to choose?" His conclusion is no.

I admit, I was more skeptical on this subject than any other he has addressed. However, after reading this book twice, I have come to the conclusion he is at least onto something. My full acceptance will require a complete overhaul of how and what and why I feel the way I do about decisions I routinely make. Thought-provoking indeed!

I have underlined many, many passages, but one that particularly sticks out is this: “One of the most refreshing ideas to come out of existentialism (perhaps the only one() is that we are free to interpret and reinterpret the meaning of our lives. You can consider your first marriage, which ended in divorce, to be a ‘failure,’ or you can view it as a circumstance that caused you to grow in ways that were crucial to your future happiness. Does this freedom of interpretation require free will? No. It simply suggests that different ways of thinking have different consequences. Some thoughts are depressing and disempowering; others inspire us. We can pursue any line of thought we want – but our choice is the product of prior events that we did not bring into being” (40).

Harris is careful to assert that the illusion of free will does not remove any responsibility for our actions. Rather the circumstances that led to a decision – whether they are internal, external, biological, or chemical – play a crucial role in determining the paths we choose.

When discussing “Moral Responsibility,” Harris writes, “Judgments of responsibility depend upon the overall complexion of one’s mind, not on the metaphysics of mental cause and effect” (49). He then describes five scenarios, all of which end with the same result. He peals apart the circumstances of each and ascribes explanations for the course of action chosen. All are not the result of free will, and this demonstrates his thesis, because we judge each of these five actions after considering surrounding circumstances.

He also spends some time describing the physiology of the brain and its role in the decision making process. It might require a second – or even a third reading – but the effort is more than worthwhile. Harris blogs at http://www.samharris.org/ 5 stars

--Chiron, 5/11/12

Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation by Elaine Pagels

Elaine Pagels teaches religion at Princeton University, and she is best known for her studies ancient religious texts. I first heard of her during an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air. Her book, The Gnostic Gospels had just been published. Since then she has had books on the Gnostic Gospels of St. Thomas and Judas.

Her latest book, Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation is every bit as interesting and readable for the non-biblical scholar as the others. She lists the curiosities of this final book of the New Testament, saying “The Book of Revelation speaks to something deep in human nature” (2). “Martin Luther wanted to throw [it] out of the canon, saying, ‘there is no Christ in it’ until he realized how he could use its powerful imagery against the Catholic Church, while Catholic apologists turned it back against him and other ‘protesting’ Christians” (3)

Pagels points out that the early church featured about 20 so-called books of “revelation.” These however, are quite different than the book John of Patmos wrote while in exile. While John focused on Judgment day and the end of the world, those others sought “the divine in [the world] now” (3).

Pagels categorizes this book as “wartime literature,” because John had witnessed the terrible death and destruction the Roman Empire wrought on Judea, including the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. She posits that “What John did … was create anti-Roman propaganda that drew its imagery from Israel’s prophetic traditions – above all the writings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel” (16). John’s “visions came to him – perhaps induced by prayer and fasting” (16-17). She then goes on to quote extensively from those Old Testament Books to draw parallels with John’s work.

Furthermore, John’s “great mountain, burning with fire” (20), may have been influenced by an event that happened ten years before, “when Mt. Vesuvius … erupted with great explosions that shook the earth and filled the air with a deafening roar” (20). Many of the fearsome monsters in Revelation bear striking resemblance to 3,000 year-old texts by “Israel’s poets and storytellers … [who told] how Israel’s God, like [the Babylonian god] Marduk, fought against a many-headed dragon, a sea-monster whom they called by such names as Leviathan and Rahab” (24-25). Both these names appear in the Old Testament.

Ultimately, John’s Revelation used “cryptic images because open hostility to Rome could be dangerous” (30). Pagels cites other prophetic writers who “had written in coded language to hold out visions of hope (30), … when, for example Daniel challenged his fellow Jews to resist the tyranny of Antiochus IV, a successor of Alexander the Great who tried to force the Jews to assimilate into his empire” (30-31). John saw the Roman Empire as the personification of evil, and only Christ’s return could punish the Romans and reward those people who had stayed faithful.

Elaine Pagels’ Revelation is another fascinating piece of the puzzle which sheds much light on the formation of the early church. Her books are as irresistible as warm chocolate chip cookies.

--Chiron, 5/10/12

Zen Buddhism by D.T. Suzuki

I own a couple of dozen books about Buddhism. I enjoy reading about the four noble truths [Life means suffering; the origin of suffering is attachment; the cessation of suffering is attainable; and the path to the cessation of suffering], the teachings of Buddha and Zen Masters, and the many riddles used in instruction; however, I have not read anything by Suzuki. But when I read that this book by him was challenged at the Plymouth-Canton school system in Canton, Michigan in 1987, I decided to purchase it. The book-banners explained their decision by stating, "this book details the teachings of the religion of Buddhism in such a way that the reader could very likely embrace its teachings and choose this as his religion." I agree it is a thorough and well-written survey of the history and philosophy of Buddhism, but I completely disagree that this – or any book – could turn someone away from sincere and deeply held beliefs. If this book turned anyone any which way, it was because the reader had some doubts about those beliefs.

Zen Buddhism has not convinced me to embrace Buddhism as a life style. Still, many of the ideas are appealing. Introspection, respect for all sentient life, non-violence, and moderation – among other ideas – are things practitioners of any religion can easily embrace.

According to the author’s note, Suzuki, who lived from 1869 to 1966, was born and educated in Japan. He lectured extensively throughout the world and taught at Columbia University. He influenced many of the great thinkers of the 20th century, including C. G. Jung, Aldous Huxley, and the Trappist Monk, Thomas Merton.”

Suzuki begins with a discussion of the “sense of Zen,” and notes that “Hebraic and Greek traditions are profoundly dualistic in spirit. That is, they divide reality into two parts and set one part off against the other. The Hebrew tradition divides God and creature, the Law and erring members, spirit and flesh. The Greek, on the other hand, divides reality along intellectual lines,” … [making] “reason the highest and most valued function” (x). The bedrock of Buddhism, however, lay in the idea of “favoring intuition over reason” (x).

Suzuki then outlines a detailed history of Buddhism from its origins in India through China, and to Japan. He then focuses on several varieties of Zen whose adherents practice meditation in an attempt to develop “a new viewpoint on life and things generally” (98). According to Suzuki, “Zen is a matter of character and not of the intellect” (114). Furthermore, he writes, requires something inwardly propelling, energizing, and capable of doing work” (111). I see this “inward force” as faith.

Zen, on the other hand, “gives life to the intellect … by giving one a new point of view on things, a new way of approaching the truth and beauty of life and the world, by discovering a new source of energy in the inmost recesses of consciousness, and by bestowing on one a feeling of completeness and sufficiency” (132).

Suzuki then gives a guide to practical instruction in Zen, Zen and the unconscious, lessons in the koans, or riddles, used in instruction, the role of nature, a survey of existentialism, pragmatism, and Zen, and finally, notes on painting, poetry, and the tea ceremony.

I highly recommend this book to any reader who has ever had any curiosity about Zen Buddhism. I tried, but failed to find anything that cannot fit within the confines of most organized religions. The only drawbacks are the Chinese and Japanese names, which can be confusing. I am moving this book to my desert island shelf. 5 stars

--Chiron, 4/14/12

The Clam Lake Papers by Edward Lueders

Margaret Hawkins, author of The Year of Cats and Dogs and How to Survive a Natural Disaster, told me I have to read this book. And who am I to argue with a writer I admire so much? Not surprisingly, she was right.

This short novel/poetry/philosophy/meditation volume has a quirkiness all its own. The author/narrator is a college professor who spends his summers in his cabin on Clam lake in Northern Wisconsin. He arrives one year to find his food depleted, his bed slept in, and a letter from a mysterious stranger who has spent the winter writing and meditating on language, literature, life, and the flora and fauna in his snowbound cabin.

I have often fantasized about such a hiatus from the world. The silence pervades the pages, and I could not hear the stranger’s voice. Some of his musings are serious and some comic, but all have an air of a man seriously grappling with the large and small details of life.

The stranger is most concerned with metaphors, and he reduces much of human existence to the wide variety of ways we use metaphor. I am not sure I bought into this idea entirely, but it certainly is intriguing.


Winter on Clam Lake









I will nominate The Clam Lakes Papers for candidacy on my “Desert Island Shelf.” It certainly needs another read after I have thought about it a little more. The author has penned a restful, relaxing, serene story, and Lueders has revived my fantasy of a getaway vacation without cell phones, radios, TVs – only paper, pencils, books, and a supply of food. 5 stars

--Chiron, 12/29/10

Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar...Understanding Philosophy through Jokes by Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein

When I mentioned this book in my “Next UP” feature to the left, I wrote, “If nothing else, I might get some good jokes.” Well I got a lot more than some good jokes – I got a LOT of good jokes. So many, in fact, I am having a hard time picking out my favorite as an example of what this little book has to offer.

Okay, so here goes. This joke illustrates “Absolute Relativity.” In other words, when two opposing points of view are treated by each person as true, some interesting results are possible. Here is the joke:

“The lookout on a battleship spies a light ahead off the starboard bow. The captain tells him to signal the other vessel. ‘Advise you change course 20 degrees immediately!’

The answer comes back, ‘Advise you change course 20 degrees immediately!’

The captain is furious. He signals, ‘I am a captain. We are on a collision course. Alter your course 20 degrees now!’

The answer comes back, ‘I am a seaman second class, and I strongly urge you to alter your course 20 degrees.”

Now the captain is beside himself with rage. He signals. ‘I am a battleship!’

The answer comes back, ‘I am a lighthouse.’” (179)

I think I might have heard this joke before, but I still laughed out loud when I read it. The book has dozens more along with lots of plain-language explanations of various branches of philosophy. The next time I have a question about philosophy, I think I will check here first! Five stars

PS: The old guy with the beard is not the platypus.

--Chiron, 11/7/10

The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris

I first encountered Sam Harris in a review of The End of Faith in The New York Times a little over six years ago in September of 2004. My journey to rationalism covered many years, much reading, over a difficult path. Sam Harris became the first of the “new atheists” who explicated my mental turmoil in a logical and common sense manner. A little over two years later, he followed this work with Letter to a Christian Nation. In this book, he answered many of the criticisms leveled at End of Faith. Many of his critics had not even the slightest taint of rationalism. Since then, I have followed Harris through his blog, www.SamHarris.org, which provides e-mail updates of publications and appearances. I knew Harris spent much of his time working on a dissertation in neuroscience from UCLA. This book is an off shoot of that dissertation.

Harris’ thesis runs like this: “…the split between facts and values – and, therefore, between science and morality – is an illusion” (179). He posits that human morality arose because it provided a value to early hominids. “…values actually are – the set of attitudes, choices, and behaviors that potentially affect our well-being, as well as that of other conscious minds” (22). The contradictions among religions arose because of narrow interests of small tribes in conflict with neighboring groups. Thus, the commandments proscribe murder and theft, yet the God of Moses directed the Israelites to kill every man, woman, and child in the way of this particular group’s takeover of large areas of the Middle East. Belief enables individuals to bridge the gap between facts and values.

Harris states, “Science can, in principle, help us understand what we should do and should want – and therefore, what other people should do and should want in order to live the best lives possible” (28). Imagine what the world would be like if everyone lived by the “Golden Rule.”

The idea of a “moral Landscape guarantees that many people will have flawed conceptions of morality, just as many people have flawed conceptions of physics” (53). Recent polls have shown that an astounding number of people in the US believe the universe is only about 7,000 years old, and therefore expect, that if evolution were true, we should be able to see monkeys evolving into humans before our eyes. Harris adds, “the fact that millions of people use the term “morality” as a synonym for religious dogmatism, racism, sexism, or other failures of insight and compassion should not oblige us to merely accept their terminology until the end of time” (53).

The chapters entitled “Belief” and “Religion” offer particularly complicated lines of reasoning, but the conclusion remains the same: “For nearly a century, the moral relativism of science has given faith-based religion -- that great engine of ignorance and bigotry – a nearly uncontested claim to being the only universal framework for moral wisdom. As a result, the most powerful societies on earth spend their time debating issues like gay marriage when they should be focused on problems like nuclear proliferation, genocide, energy security, climate change, poverty, and failing schools” (191).

At times, The Moral Landscape is not an easy read. I found myself going back over some key passages in order to fully digest Harris’ lines of reasoning. However, the challenge is extremely worthwhile in the long run. The author devoted nearly 100 pages – one-third of the book – to detailed footnotes, references, and an index. This work represents scholarship of the first order. This book belongs on the shelf of every person concerned with rationalism and the moral and ethical problems of the dangerous world in which we live. (5 stars)

--Chiron, 10/16/10

Rumi: The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing Translation and Commentraies by Coleman Barks

I have been dipping into this volume of Rumi’s more obscure love poetry at night in the quiet moments before I turned out the light. This volume was an anniversary present from my wife back in April. I decided to finish it tonight.

These poems are exquisite, profound, simple, lovely, enchanting, mysterious, warm, and full of surprises. I could probably list another dozen adjectives if I thought long and hard enough!

Barks has written 22 short essays or meditations on different aspects of love and then provided anywhere from 6 to 14 poems to illustrate the points. My favorite was Chapter Five, “Escaping into Silence.” He challenges the reader to “try a day of silence with someone. Just one day!” (32). One of the poems he uses here, “The Waterwheel,” is also one of my favorites.

“Stay together friends.
Don’t scatter and sleep.

Our friendship is made
of being awake.

The waterwheel accepts water
and turns and gives it away,
weeping

That way it stays in the garden,
whereas another roundness rolls
through a dry riverbed looking
for what it thinks it wants.

Stay here, quivering with each moment
like a drop of mercury.

This marriage be wine with halvah,
honey dissolving in milk.

This marriage be the leaves and fruit
of a date tree. This marriage

be women laughing together for days
on end. This marriage a sign

for us to study. This marriage
beauty. This marriage, a moon

in a light blue sky. This marriage,
this silence, fully mixed with spirit.”

On Saturday, January 3rd, we are going to try and go as long as we can without making any sounds. We will turn off all our phones, no TV or radio, no micro wave, no timers or drawers opening – just pure and complete silence as long as we can.

If you think you are in love, Rumi will confirm it. If you are not in love, Rumi will confirm it. If you want to know and understand love, Rumi is the vehicle, the candle, the gentle breeze that will lead you to understanding.

Here is one more poem from Chapter Four, “Sudden Wholeness” (30).

“A thousand half loves
must be forsaken to take
one whole heart home.”

--Chiron, 12/30/08

The Essential Dalai Lama: His Important Teachings edited by Rajiv Mehrota

The writings of the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, form an important part of my philosophy collection. His simple, smooth style relaxes the mind while challenging the intellect. Samples from all his works are here, and I highly recommend this as an introduction to his philosophy.

At one time, there were several individuals I loathed with a seething passion for what they had done to me, to my loved ones, or to my friends. Reading his book, The Art of Happiness, showed me the folly of the energy wasted on hatred. For that simple lesson alone, I owe him a debt of gratitude. Now, I hardly think of those individuals at all. In fact, as I sit here typing this, I doubt I could name all six of them.

Anyone can read this most accessible explanation of Buddhist perspective. There is no need to convert; in fact, Buddhists discourage conversion, believing, rightly so, that Buddhist principles can fit into any philosophy of life, religion, or world-view without disturbing anything in the process. This volume contains perspectives on the teachings of Jesus. 5 stars

--Chiron, 8/3/08