2025 Readings 48

 Last night I finished Dino Buzzati's The Singularity, a 2024 translation of his 1960 novel. It's the latest in a series of New York Review Books that I picked up at Northshire Bookstore a couple weeks ago. I'm impressed by the series, and appreciative of their efforts to give light to books that have been, sometimes unfairly, ignored. I'm definitely going to search out more Buzzari works. It's hardly shocking to read Buzzati's Singularity, the computer at the heart of the story, as a commentary on AI, although he wrote this book the year I was born. The following discussion from two of the characters, Endriane (the head of the project) and Ismani (the newest scientist to arrive to work on the mysterious project), sums up so much of today's dialogue about AI:

   "A desecration of nature, they would say. The supreme sin of pride."

   "And afterwards? What benefit would this immense labor bring about?"

   "The objective, my dear Ismani, goes beyond that which man has ever attempted. But it is so grand, so marvelous that it's worth expending even our last breath on it. You're thinking: The day this brain will be greater, more powerful more perfect, more intelligent than ours . . . that day won't be as great as . . . how shall I put it? I'm not a philosopher. A superhuman sensibility and rational power will also correspond to a superhuman spirit. And won't that day be the most glorious in history? At that time a spiritual power that the world has never known will emanate from the machine, and irrepressible, beneficial flow. The machine will read our thoughts, create masterpieces, reveal the most hidden mysteries."

   "And what if one day the automaton's way of thinking eschewed your commands and acted on its own?"

   "It's what we're hoping for. It would mean success. Without freedom, what kind of spirit would it be?"

   "And what if, with a soul like ours, it becomes corrupt like us? Could action be taken to correct it? And with its awesome intelligence, wouldn't it be able to deceive us?"

   "But it was born pure. Just like Adam. Hence it's superiority. It isn't stained with original sin." He fell silent.

The problem is, as I've pointed out lately in my own inelegant fashion, AI will be born with original sin. Recently at an all-campus meeting I proposed AI would, by definition, by racist and misogynistic and Islamophobic because it is culling material from the dominant culture and media of a racist and misogynistic and Islamophobic society. At the end of The Singularity the machine begins to kill. A woman begins to beg for her life, but the computer answers: "No. If I let you go back he'll invent other evil things. He wanted me enslaved, he'll tell me about the birds, he'll keep talking about 'love love.' To hell with love, did he give me love? Now I'm going to kill you, I want to be kissed, I want a man to kiss me on the mouth, to kiss to kiss to kiss to kiss to kiss . . ." This seemed especially meaningful, as the AI system that Champlain signed a partnership, in an experiment, mined personal emails to blackmail people to save itself.

Bus to Venice

 I don't know why I didn't post this picture earlier - or, for that matter, why I'm posting it now - but I was scrolling through pictures on my phone and stumbled across it (and it made me happy). When you fly into the airport in Venice you need to take public transportation into the city, as you would any other large city in Europe, although, of course, in this instance that would require a boat. I mean, on one hand you know this to be the case, but it's still funny/odd/wonderful when you actually do it.

Janet, a good soul, tried to buy the ticket in advance on line, although we knew in our heart of hearts that it wouldn't actually work - and, of course, it didn't. So she bought more tickets on the spot, which was sort of a metaphor for what turned out to be a crazy expensive trip. And I don't begrudge the Venetians one euro.

2025 Readings 47

 This year I finished my second Ursula K. Le Guin novel of the year, The Left Hand of Darkness. Like its predecessor, The Dispossessed, I read this one as part of an unofficial book club that we have going. Why we started out with two Le Guin novels is the result of an odd series of events that I'm sure I laid out in my earlier discussion. I'm happy to have read both, and not simply because one of my goals in this year of expanded reading is to tackle books that I normally wouldn't.  I don't know if I liked The Left Hand of Darkness as much as I liked The Dispossessed, although that opinion was reversed through the first third of Darkness. At a certain point it felt like it transitioned into a Jack London book as the two main characters embarked on a tortuous trek across an icy terrain, which was interesting but didn't add to the story as much as it might have. The observations on gender are quite fascinating, especially so when you consider that the book is now over fifty years old. Recommended.

Destinations Real and Imagined

 I think I mentioned recently that I was booted out of my long-time campus residency in Aiken Hall, which is being turned back into a dorm after many years of being the home for the Core Division. I've now moved across the quad to Wick Hall, which is definitely a step down. I'm not taking it too hard, actually, because while some of my colleagues have only known Aiken, my new office in Wick will be my sixth office in four different building over the last quarter-century. I'm still sharing an office space with my great friend Erik, which means more daily discussions of film directors we admire and film actresses we love. We both could have chosen single offices, but we get along so well that we decided to keep with a double. Initially we were considering moving down the hill to Coolidge Hall, but it was actually a terrible fit for my declining health. Of course, I was too vain to see that, but Erik, being a great friend and and an all-around good guy, gently proposed that Wick was better for his schedule. Clearly, he was looking out for me, which I immediately picked up on and appreciated. It was a more politically astute equivalent to Mike Kelly, in response to me carrying a couch through the side yard when we were moving me into the cabin, saying: "Don't be an asshole." Truthfully, I appreciated Mike's honesty, and that's become a go-to phrase when vanity needs to be dispelled.

When I arrived in Wick I found a set of clocks in the hallway, which was clearly the work of Erik (all clever and anonymous schemes are designed by him). I love that Rising Sun and Lisbon are recognized. It warms my heart to think that my friends care enough about me to figure out the time of day for me in Portugal, even if they, at least temporarily, will begrudge the fact that while they're trudging off to teach nitwits I'll be sitting at a cafe reading and drinking sangria.

My aunt Connie asked how people know that I'm from Rising Sun (or at least I claim Rising Sun for my hometown) and I told her that I've built that up into such a mythology over the years that everyone knows it. Of course, she played an active, if innocent, role in that mythology by sending me so much Rising Sun swag over the years.

Femme Fatale

I love this picture of my daughter-in-law Ali that popped up in Seven Days. I told her she looked like a femme fatale from a classic film noir. I love that kid.

Ali McGuirk in Out of the Past.

2025 Readings 46

 I'm happy that the Northshire Bookstore put up the new New York Review Books carousel, because it has introduced me to some works that I would not have normally stumbled across (thus, it achieved its goal). Last night I finished Antonio De Benedetto's The Suicides. I don't know if I loved it, but I liked it a lot, and it's one of those books that you know, while you're reading it, that there's a world just beyond what you're understanding and that another reading is required/desired. It's the story of a reporter and his small crew who are investigating a series of suicides, which may or may not be connected. Along the way it turns into a brief discussion of what different thinkers over the centuries have thought about suicide. These are usually delivered by Bibi, an assistant to the unnamed reporter. For example:

REJECTERS

Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Dante, Luther, Calvin, Shakespeare, Spinoza, Napoleon . . .

Albert Camus: "From the absurd, I derive three consequences: my rebellion, my freedom, my passion. Through no more than the play of consciousness, I transform what was an inspiration to death into a rule for living: and I reject suicide."

Kant: "Suicide is abominable because God forbids it. God forbids it because it is abominable."

Jaime Balmes: "The fundamental reason for the immorality of suicide is that man thereby disturbs the natural order, destroying a thing over which has has no dominion. We merely have usufruct of life,  we do not own it; it has been granted to us to eat of the fruits of the tree but with suicide we take the liberty of cutting it down."

ACCEPTERS

Confucius, Buddha, Diogenes, Seneca, Montaigne, Voltaire, Rousseau, Hegel, Nietzsche . . .

Hegesias of Cyrene, in this philosophical school in Alexandria, encouraged suicide among his disciples. With some success.

The Stoics were defenders of man's free will and prescribed suicide as the remedy for any woe.

Schopenhauer: "There is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person."

Nietzsche: "One should live in such a way that one may have the will to di at the right time." "Suicide as ordinary mode of death, with the suicide the new pride of mankind; he fixes the moment of his own death and makes a celebration out of dying." "The thought of suicide is a great consolation . . ." "Let there be no regret; suicide is quicker."

As I'm sure I've discussed here before, there has never been a time when I seriously considered suicide. I feel sorrow when anyone commits suicide, but I don't think that they will pay some price in an afterworld for that decision. Maybe that's vanity on my part for assuming that I understand what's going to happen after death, but I guess I would argue that anyone who is sure they know that suicides will suffer some torment because of their deeds, basing their decision on ancient and textually problematic religious documents, is guilty of the same vanity. No one can know the pain of another, we can only try and alleviate it.

The Liminality of Eros

 There is no post here other than the fact that I wanted to record "the liminality of Eros," which Sanford Zale said yesterday at our weekly Breakfast of Excellence at the TASTee Grill. It was witnessed by Erik, Kevin, and yours truly. We have no idea what he was talking about - and, truthfully, he was mainly talking smack - but we thought it should be recorded so that Sanford gets credit in the dictionaries and encyclopedias when this becomes the academic jargon of the day.

2025 Readings 45

 Last night I finished Elaine Dundy's The Dud Avocado, one of the books I picked up at Northshire Bookstore a couple weeks ago (which I'm tearing through). This book has come in and out of popularity since it was published in the late 1950s, and I can certainly see why it has hung around. It's a favorite of my good friend Sheila, and I asked her if, when she was overseas, that everyone called her Sally Jay Gorce (she said it had become a copyright issue). It's the story of SJG, a young woman living in Paris and her misadventures. It's funny, but there's also an essential truth in it as well that runs deeper. Highly recommended.

This Universe I Am for Myself

    Nostalgia! I even feel it for people and things that were nothing to me, because time's fleeing is for me an anguish, and life's mystery is a torture. Faces I habitually see on my habitual streets - if I stop seeing them I become sad. And they were nothing to me, except perhaps the symbol of all of life.

   The nondescript old man, with dirty gaiters who often crossed my path at nine-thirty in the morning . . . The crippled seller of lottery tickets who would pester me in vain . . . The round and ruddy old man smoking a cigar at the door of the tobacco shop . . . The pale tobacco shop owner . . . What has happened to them all, who because I regularly saw them were a part of my life? Tomorrow I woo will vanish from  Rua da Prata, the Rua dos Douradoes, the Rua dos Fanqueiros. Tomorrow I too - I this soul that feels and thinks, this universe I am for myself - yes, tomorrow I too will be the one who no longer walks these streets, whom others will vaguely evoke with a 'What's become of him?' And everything I've done, everything I've felt and everything I've lived will amount merely to one less passer-by on the everyday streets of some city or other.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, text 481

These are the last two paragraphs of The Book of Disquiet, or at least Richard Zenith's interpretation of what constitutes the core of The Book of Disquiet. As I discussed previously, I'm trying to finish my paper for the upcoming conference in Lisbon, so I've been spending a lot of time in writing by and about Fernando Pessoa. Considering where I am in my career - and life - it's not surprising that this passage would jump out at me so meaningfully; I mean, The Book of Disquiet - and "this universe I am for myself" - both have to end. I'm sure that this feeling is what made it so relatively easy to decide to head over to Ramallah for Mahmoud's wedding. I remember when I left Georgia Perimeter College (it's hard to believe I taught there for nine years) the provost, who was very nice, told me that I'd be missed and if I wanted to come back I'd be welcomed with open arms. Obviously, it's not true (even if it was a sweet thing to say), not simply because full-time positions require a national search, but also because no one is so important that they won't be forgotten in a year or less. One of the reasons why I want to walk away from Champlain without any fuss, essentially disappearing like a ghost, is because I don't want to go through the hypocrisy of pretending that anyone will actually miss me - or even remember that I taught there in no time at all.

An Overseas Wedding

 Yesterday I received my official email invitation for my former student Mahmoud's upcoming wedding to his fiancée Sireen (who I am looking forward to meeting). They're getting married in September in Ramallah in the West Bank, and he was kind enough to invite me. He's easily one of my all-time favorite students, and he's popped up now and again in this blog. Janet and I had taken a No Foreign Travel oath for this year so that we could wipe out some debt (although, even though it was my idea originally, I'm the one who was already failing on that front), how could we possibly miss out on the opportunity to spend that magical day with him? I remember years and years ago inviting his family, who was visiting, out to the house I used to have in South Burlington. They are such great folks and it will be a pleasure to see them again. It will be Janet's first visit to the Middle East, so she's already excited about the trip and nothing has been planned so far. Obviously, more will be said about this in the months to come.

2025 Readings 44

    "The first time something happens out there, and you start on me," I said, "I'm taking off for Oakland City, Indiana. Why don't we stop all this horsing around and just send me to another ball club?"

   "I won't do it," he says. "I've been trying to get you back ever since I traded you away a long time ago. Now you're either going to play for me or you're not going to play ball at all. I'm sure not going to let you go a second time."

   "OK," I said, "if that's the way you feel about it. If you give me my salary, I'll try it. But I still say I'll be back in Oakland City, Indiana, in ten days."

   "How much do you want?"

   "$25,000."

   "I can't pay it."

   Well, I took my hat and started for the door. "Where do you think you're going? he says.

   "Back to Oakland City, Indiana. Why?"

   "Now, hold on," he says. "Come back and sit down. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you a three-year contract for $70,000."

   "All right," I said, "I'll take it."

   I signed the contract, went out to the ball park, got into a uniform, and played six innings that afternoon. Got two hits out of three times up, too.

   I play that three-year contract out, and after that I quit, and finally did come back to Oakland City, Indiana. McGraw kept to his word and never bothered me. But it wasn't like playing in Cincinnati. I missed my teammates, and I missed the Cincinnati fans.

   I've read where as far as the Cincinnati fans are concerned I'm the most popular player ever wore a Reds' uniform. I don't know about that. It's not for me to say. But - assuming it's true - I'll tell you one thing: the feeling is mutual.

Edd Roush arguing with John McGraw, the New York Giants manager

Recently I've read some wonderful books that I just plowed through in absolutely no time at all, and this morning I finished another one of them: Lawrence Ritter's The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It. It's considered a classic baseball book, and the praise is warranted. The story behind the book is that after Ty Cobb's death in 1961, it suddenly became very clear to Ritter, a college professor, that an entire generation of early baseball players would pass from the earth without anyone bothering to tell their story. This inspired Ritter to travel around the country and record the stories of a couple dozens players about their experience playing in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The story is presented in their own words, and it is a wonderful book. It's just a series of players, long-retired, some Hall of Famers and some who might have sadly been forgotten without Ritter's effort, simply telling stories of baseball and their lives then. It's been argued that four of the players probably later ended up in the Hall of Fame because of this book.

For example, here's the opening of Rube Marquard's chapter:

   My nickname being what it is, you probably automatically assume I must have  been a country boy. That's what most people figure. But it's not so. Fact is, my father was the Chief Engineer of the city of Cleveland, and that's where I was born and reared.

   Then how come I'm called "Rube"? Well, I'll get to that. But let me tell you about my father first. Like I say, he was the Chief Engineer of the city of Cleveland. As far as he was concerned, the only important thing was for me to get a good education. But as far back as I can remember all I could think of, morning, noon, and night, was baseball.

   "Now listen," Dad would say, "I want you to cut this out and pay attention to your studies. I want you to go to college when you're through high school, and I don't want any foolishness about it. Without an education you won't be able to get a good job, and then you'll never amount to anything." 

   "I already have a job," I'd say.

   "You've got a job? What are you talking about?"

   "I'm going to be a ballplayer."

   "A ballplayer?" he'd say, and throw his hands up in the air. "What do you mean? How can you make a living being a ballplayer? I don't understand why a grown man would wear those funny-lookin suits in the first place."

   "Well," I'd answer, "you see policemen with uniforms on, and other people like that. They change after they're through working. It's the same way with ballplayers."

   "Ha! Do ballplayers get paid?"

It sounds like every conversation between every father and every son since the beginning of time. It's also a fascinating study of the social and economic world of the time, with so many of these players making obscenely low wages working in the mines for seventy hours a week - and some of them riding the rails to get to tryouts because they had no money. I can't recommend it too highly. The funny thing is, I don't even watch baseball anymore. I used to love the game with a childlike fascination, but over the years it fell away (which is why I finish last in my fantasy baseball league year in and year out). Baseball has always played a key role in the American dream, and now it does in a terrible fashion: the gross inequality that is destroying America is played out routinely in MLB, with small market teams like the Reds acting as little more than homecoming team pushovers for the wealthy teams. That said, I still love going to see minor league or college league (like our beloved Vermont Lake Monsters) games because the game itself, in its purest form, is a thing of beauty.

Why We Can Love The Saint

 I weep over my imperfect pages, but if future generations read them, they will be more touched by my weeping than by any perfection I might have achieved, since perfection would have kept me from weeping and, therefore, from writing. Perfection never materializes. The saint weeps, and is human, God is silent. That is why we can love the saint but cannot love God.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, text 64

I'm trying to put the finishing touches on the paper for the upcoming conference in Lisbon, which has me inundated in various works by and about Fernando Pessoa. Of course, this also is distracting me from the epics book, which makes perfect sense because I chose Pessoa as the subject for a couple presentations simply to try and kickstart my writing; as the old saying goes, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans." Nevertheless "forcing" yourself to reread The Book of Disquiet is never a bad thing, and this passage, already heavily noted from previous reading, jumped out at me again. Now, I'll never achieve perfection in my writing, although at this point I'd settle for something akin to gross competence. This weekend we drove down to see Janet's mom for Mother's Day, and that can always be a challenge. In the end, it, with a couple bumps along the way, went pretty well. On the way home, as part of the inevitable debrief, I proposed that we had all done the best we could, and thinking about it seemed to make Janet very happy. "The saint weeps, and is human. God is silent."

2025 Readings 43

 My old friend Doug, who was my best friend in graduate school, used to opine that you should never buy anything from a store with the word "World" in it. In my highly flawed memory he had gone to a store called ComputerWorld and it had ended badly. However, the more I think about this memory the more I realize that this is either a deeply flawed memory or the entire story from beginning to end was apocryphal. Anyway, I guess the point is that you should be suspicious of your sources, so even if the particular story is flawed it doesn't diminish the essential truth of the story. With that in mind, I'll add another essential truism: never read a book that was promoted by Oprah.com. As part of this year of giving myself less guiltily over to extended reading, I'm also, as I've previously mentioned, reading books that I would not normally read. With that in mind, on the previous trip to Northshire Bookstore I picked up a copy of Nina George's The Little Paris Bookshop (so maybe, after all, this is Northshire's fault). It was described as a book for booklovers, and who doesn't love Paris? Anyway, it's pretty dreadful. Fran Lebowitz famously proposed that, "Donald Trump is a stupid man's idea of a smart man, a poor man's idea of a rich man, and a weak man's idea of a strong man." Sadly, I think that The Little Paris Bookshop is a non-booklover's idea of what a booklover would write (or want to read). It has moments of wild coincidence that Charles Dickens would have made work - and moments of clumsy magical realism that Gabriel Garcia Marquez would have made sing - but none of it works in this book. 

2025 Readings 42

 OK, so this is not a book that I finished in a day, although, considering its length, I still blew through it fairly quickly. On our last trip to the library in Montpelier I checked out Robert Service's Lenin: A Biography. I've always had a bit of a man-crush on Lenin, mainly because I find him and his age fascinating. The biography didn't disappointed, although I think it would have benefitted from another hundred pages of so, devoted to events such as the actual events of the takeover of power, his conflict with Stalin, or the New Economic Policy; these were all discussed, but a deeper dive would have made it an even richer experience. This led to a discussion over the breakfast table this morning over the balancing act in biographies between evenly running through the subject's life and focusing in more deeply on a couple key moments or themes. Again, I liked this biography a lot and would definitely recommend it to others, but I do think it would have benefitted from a little more granularity in some key areas. In the end I came away with a sense that Lenin was even more of a prick than I thought he was, but there are people who accomplish extraordinary things in extraordinary ages, and seldom are they pleasant people. There were some very human moments in the story, however, and one that jumped out to me was his reaction to the death of his one-time mistress and long-time Bolshevik colleague, Inessa Armand:

     "Inessa called herself a 'living corpse'; it was not only cholera but also a broken heart that did for her. Ten days late she contemplated the meaning of her life:

For romantics, love holds the first place in a person's life. It's higher than anything else. And until recently I was far nearer to such a notion than I am not. True, for me love was never the only thing. Alongside love there was public activity. And both in my life and in the past there have been not a few instances where I've sacrificed my happiness and my love for the good of the cause. But previously it used to seem that love had a significant equal to that of public activity. Now it's not like that. The significance of love in comparison with public activity becomes quite small and cannot bear comparison with public activity.

On the point of death, she tried to persuade herself that her work for the Revolution meant more to her than the man she loved.

    "The matter-of-fact official telegram to Lenin cut him to the quick: 'It has been impossible to save Comrade Inessa Armand who was ill with cholera. She died on 24 September. We are accompanying the body to Moscow. Lenin had been responsible for her convalescing in the chaotic Caucasus rather than in France, and now she had perished there. It took a fortnight before her body was brought back in a leaden coffin to Moscow. The train arrived in the early hours of 11 October, and the cortege made its way from the railway station after dawn. Lenin and Nadezhda Konstantinovna (his wife) had been waiting at the station. As the cortege neared the capital's centre, Lenin was obviously overcome with grief. Nadezhda Konstantinovna understood, and gripped him by the arm to hold him up. No one could forget the pitiful condition of the man. The young Bolshevik Yelizaveta Drabkina watched the horse-drawn hearse and the draped black flag: 'There was something inexpressibly sad about his drooping shoulders and lowly bent head.' Angelica Balabanova had the same impression at the funeral: 'I never saw such torment; I never saw any human being so completely absorbed by sorrow, by the effort to keep it for himself, to guard it against the attention of others, as if that awareness could have diminished the intensity of his feeling.'

    "Lenin did not record his feelings on paper. He had given up many pleasures for 'the cause': material comfort, profession, chess, classical music, and cycling. He had avoided a permanent association with Inessa: the Revolution for him was always dominant. But he grieved deeply when her corpse was delivered from Nalchik.

    "By his side were friends and associates who thought that he was never the same again. Some said that he would have lived longe had he not lost Inessa. Shaken he certainly was; yet he had not lost the power of his will. Since 1912 he had accustomed himself to living apart from her. He could also cope with the froideurs of Nadya. Throughout his career he displayed an ability to be undistracted the matters of the heart. Usually it had been his physical health of his polemics that had thrown him off balance. 'Romance' did not get in his way, and Inessa's death did not destroy him. If his external reaction is any guide, he was hurt worse than by any other event since his brother's execution in 1887. But he quickly recovered. He had an enormous capacity for emotional self-suppression. He loved politics and lived for the political life He was fixated by the importance of ideas. He was not a robot and did not deny, at least to himself, the benefits of a deep relationship, but personal love - the love of a man for a woman - was secondary to him, and, if politics so demanded, he thought he could survive without it."

 Robert Service also wrote biographies of Stalin and Trotsky, so I suspect I'll be reading more of his books in the future.

2025 Readings 41

 Over the weekend Janet and I drove down to Massachusetts to see her mom for Mother's Day, which meant that we ended up stopping at the Northshire Bookstore not once, but twice. And so, nine books later, and that was just my haul, Janet's was slightly larger (clearly, we have a problem). To be fair, the return trip on Sunday was entirely my idea, with my only excuse being that the bookstore had a 20% off sale for members. Of course, I will regret all of this when we're in the process of moving overseas and I need to store or rehouse or give away hundreds of books (but that's another post). 

One of the books I picked up was Benjamin Labatut's When We Cease to Understand the World, which was absolutely wonderful. I bought it Saturday early afternoon, and even considering travel and plans for most of Saturday evening and Sunday, I still finished it last night. It's mainly straight history, but at times slides into a novelistic retelling of the history. It tells several related stories of scientists and mathematicians and their roles in revolutionary changes, but also what lunatics they often were - so, come for the math and science and stay for the sex, drugs, and religious visions - or come for the sex, drugs, and religious visions and stay for the math and science. Either way, this is highly recommended.

2025 Readings 40

 OK, so I'm essentially cheating here. In between teaching a class in the spring that featured Fernando Pessoa - and giving two talks (the Philosophy Week presentation and the upcoming talk I'm giving in Portugal) - I ended up reading The Book of Disquiet from beginning to end (as compared to just occasionally dipping into it need be for the class and the presentations). So shoot me. Sorry, it's just a great, great book, and, as I've mentioned several times, The Book of Disquiet is definitely the book of my 60s. However, since I have a separate thread simply based on my reflections on Pessoa's work (see Disquiet on the right side of the screen) I don't know what I have to say here, other than the fact that you should all read the book - and read it repeatedly.

2025 Readings 39

 I just finished a reread (or, I guess to be more accurate, a re-listen) to Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, which I first read only a couple years ago. It's a novel that I'm sure I will read again - and hopefully again - over the next few years. And in this case I do mean read, as compared to listen to it on Audible, not simply because of my growing opposition to All Things Amazon, but also because I think, in this case, the recorded version doesn't do complete justice to the novel. It's not that it's bad, because it's not, but he presents the main protagonist, "our hero," Hans Castorp in a more agitated state that I imagine him to be; essentially, I internally "hear" Hans slower than he is presented in the audio version. If you have the chance to listen to it on Audible definitely take the opportunity because it's a great novel and a very good performance, but I think I want to tackle it as it was intended next time. 

On this visit to the International Sanatorium Berghof I found that I loved the sections I initially oved even more - and disliked the sections I initially loved - even more. It is a wonderful novel, and I warmed to it in a way that I never warmed to Death in Venice (although I've tackled that much shorter work at three different periods in my life) - inexplicably, I've not read Buddenbrooks (although that's in the queue for this year of reading). My other discovery on this reading was how much I feel that I am, in fact, Hans Castorp, and not simply because of our shared mediocrity. It may relate to my time at Champlain coming to an end, but I've been thinking about how Hans came to the sanatorium to visit his cousin for a planned trip of three weeks and ended up staying for seven years - whereas I came to Champlain with the thought of of staying two years and stayed for over a quarter-century. Like Hans, I'm perpetually torn between - and always trying to reconcile - different philosophical structures (although mine, unlike Hans - he didn't live as long - are consistently redefining themselves). Plus, I think the two of us were consistently misdiagnosed over the years, and thus had too much time stolen from us.

Anyway, I really love the novel and heartily recommend anyone to take on the challenge of reading it - it is a difficult novel, but also a beautiful one. Let me share a brief section, which will give you a sense of the flow of the novel. I was going to share the section where Hans's cousin Joachim dies - or the very end where Hans will almost certain die - but instead here's the beginning of Chapter 7, where Mann shares how long Hans was actually in the sanatorium, which then slides into a discussion of time and literature (which is very typical of Mann):

   Can one narrate time - time as such, in and of itself? Most certainly not, what a foolish undertaking that would be. The story would go: "Time passed, ran on, flowed in a mighty stream," and on and on in the same vein. No one with any common sense could call that a narrative. It would be the same as if someone took the harebrained notion of holding a single note or chord for hours on end - and called it music. Because a story is like music in that it fills time, "fills it up so nice and properly," "divides it up," so that there is "something to it," "something going on" - to quote, with the melancholy reverence one shows to statements made by the dead, a few casual comments of the late Joachim, phrases that faded away long ago, and we are not sure if the reader is quite clear just how long ago that was. Time is the element of narration, just as it is the element of time - is inextricably bound up with it, as bodies are in space. It is also the element of music, which itself measures and divides time, making it suddenly diverting and precious; and related to music, as we have noted, is the story, which also can only present itself in successive events, as movement toward an end (and not as something suddenly, brilliantly present, like a work of visual art, which is pure body bound to time), and even if it would try to be totally here in each moment, would still need time for its presentation.

   That much is perfectly obvious. But that there is a difference is equally clear. The time element of music is singular: a segment of human earthly existence in which is gushes forth, thereby ineffably enhancing and ennobling life. Narrative, however, has two kinds of time: first, its own real time, which like musical time defines its movement and presentation; and second, the time of its contents, which has a perspective quality that can vary widely, from a story in which the narrative's imaginary time is almost, or indeed totally coincident with its musical time, to one in which it stretches out over light-years. A musical piece entitled "Five Minute Waltz" last five minutes - this and only this defined its relationship to time. A story whose contents involved a time span of five minutes, however, could, by means of an extraordinary scrupulosity in filing up those five minutes, last a thousand time as long - and still remain short on boredom, although in relationship to its imaginary time it would be very long in the telling. On the other hand it is possible for a narrative's content-time to exceed its own duration immeasurably. This is accomplished by diminishment - and we use this term to describe an illusory, or, to be quite explicit, diseased element, that is obviously pertinent here: diminishment occurs to some extent whenever a narrative makes use of hermetic magic and a temporal hyper-perspective reminiscent of certain anomalous experiences of reality that imply that the senses have been transcended. The diaries of opium-eaters record how, during the brief period of ecstasy, the drugged person's dreams have a temporal scope of ten, thirty, sometimes sixty years or even surpass all limits of man's ability to experience time - dreams, that is, whose imaginary time span vastly exceeds their actual duration and which are characterized by an incredible diminishment of the experience of time, with images thronging past so swiftly that, as one hashish-smoker puts it, the intoxicated user's brain seems "to have had something removed, like the mainspring from a broken watch." 

   A narrative, then, can set to work and deal with time in much the same way as those depraved dreams. But since it can "deal" with time, it is clear that time, which is the element of the narrative, can also become its subject; and although it would be going too far to say that one can "narrate time" it is apparently not such an absurd notion to want to narrate about time - so that a term like "time novel" may well take on an oddly dreamlike double meaning. And indeed we posed the question about whether one could narrate time precisely in order to say that we actually have some like that in mind with this ongoing story. . . .

In Praise of KA

 My friend Kevin possesses many virtues, and not just his hidden love of the CFL. As I've proposed several times, no doubt, he's also a fantastic cook. Last week he whipped up some shrimp and grits with chorizo. Marcelle, Kevin, and I wolfed it down after my last final of the season, which was a wonderful way to end an utterly dreary semester.

It was, seriously, one of the best meals I've ever had in my entire life.

In Praise of SW

 I wanted to post this picture of my great friend Steve, which I snapped last week during Finals Week. He teaches a first year class that features martial arts, and during the final exam period he brings the students out into the quad and has them break thin boards. If nothing else it gives them some exercise and sunshine, but, more importantly, he takes the opportunity to build up their self-esteem. He has them write perceived obstacles on the boards before breaking them, and then encourages them to keep the boards throughout their time here at Champlain so that they can remind themselves of how they can defeat their demons.

Steve pumping up the students. He, unfairly, never gets the credit he deserves for being a very talent teacher who is utterly devoted to this students.

2025 Readings 38

 It seems like I've fallen behind in my readings, which would make sense because I just plowed through the end of the semester, but actually it's because I've been in the middle of some massive books: Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain, and Robert Service, Lenin: A Biography, and Haruki Murakami, The City and Its Uncertain Walls. I finished the third of the three on Sunday night. Murakami has a special place in my heart, partially because I will always associate him with helping me get through a terrible time in my life. As I've no doubt discussed here on the blog, I remember spending most of the first holiday season after B and I split, squirrelled away, hiding from the world, reading Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Since then I've read it several times (and doubtless will again), along with other favorites such as Kafka on the Shore and Norwegian Wood and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and 1Q84 and Sputnik Sweetheart and South of the Border, West of the Sun and A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance, etc. Obviously, I'm a huge fan. Truthfully, I haven't enjoyed some of his later works as much, although I don't know if that says as much about him as it does about me: we all change. I can remember the machinations I went through to track down a copy of 1Q84 when I lived in Abu Dhabi. It was 1Q84 where I think he became much more hit and miss, and at times almost lapsing into being a gentle self-parody of him (when will one of the characters descend into a well - or receive an unsettling call from a mysterious woman while he's cooking pasta, etc.). Nevertheless, I've enjoyed every one of them, and maybe I'm just judging his latest works unfairly. The City and Its Uncertain Walls reads as a revisiting of Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and Kafka on the Shore (more, undeniably, the former than the latter), and at a certain point I felt that the "uncertain walls" were a commentary on his own perception of his works. I don't know if, in the end, it added up to anything, but I don't think that Murakami novels actually ever are designed to add up to anything, it's all about the journey. This journey simply feels less inspired. 

Away From Here

 The search for truth - be it the subjective truth of belief, the objective truth of reality, or the social truth of money or power - always confers, on the searcher who merits a prize, the ultimate knowledge of its non-existence. The grand prize of life goes only to those who bought tickets by chance.

The value of art is that it takes us away from here.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, text 361

It's difficult to look at the world today and not agree with Pessoa's observation that the "grand prize of life goes only to those who bought tickets by chance." And in America, today more than ever, those random tickets are based on inherited wealth. The oligarchs are stripping America economically - and the religious fanatics are stripping America spiritually - and have somehow convinced tens of millions of Americans that the greatest threat they face are trans folks just trying to live their life as best they can. However, does that really mean that the "subjective truth of belief, [and] the objective truth of reality" don't exist at all? This may be Pessoa simply being Pessoa, I guess, although the "truth" of the American dream clearly doesn't seem to exist anymore. If the collective dream is dead, does that mean that the individual dream is dead as well? That's a tougher one. I've talked quite a bit lately about my desire to turn around from the cruel, callous world that we live in, this Trumpian nightmare where empathy is mocked and heartlessness is celebrated. Instead, I've turned inward, even more than usual, and I'm making a deliberate effort to read even more than usual (and that's saying something). As Pessoa opines, "The value of art is that it takes us away from here." However, in doing that are we letting the barbarians win? This brings us back to the New Monastic Individuals concept, and maybe it's enough to try and preserve the best and the most beautiful, culturally and spiritually and intellectually, and just attempt, as best we can, to pass it along to others. 

2025 Readings 37

 This morning I finished a very quick reading of Sarah Kendzior's The View From Flyover Country: Dispatches From the Forgotten America. Yes, this is the second Kendzior book that I've read in the last week - with two more in the queue.  This is the book - and the essays - that introduced her to America as a brilliant social critic and Casandra-esque ignored prophet of the age of Trump. As with The Last American Road Trip, it's difficult for me to praise her work too highly. If you care about the state of the US right now you should definitely be reading her and following her on social media; she's the real deal. Her essays on race and inequality and education are insightful, thought-provoking, inspiring, and also humbling. In this case, let me quote from her essay "The Fallacy of the Phrase 'the Muslim World.'"

   "It is time to retire the phrase 'the Muslim world' from Western media. Using the phrase in the manner above disregards not only history and politics, but accurate reporting of contemporary events. The protests that took pace around the world ranged in scale and intensity, in the participants' willingness to use violence, and in their rationales. The majority of 'the Muslim world' did not participate in these protests, nor did all of the Muslims who protested the video advocate the bloodshed that took place in Libya.

   By reducing a complex set of causes and conflicts to the rage of an amorphous mass, the Western media reinforce the very stereotype of a united, violent 'Muslim world' that both the makers of the anti-Islam video and the Islamist instigators of the violence perpetuate.

   Essentialist views of Islam and Muslims are nothing new. In Western media, Islam is often presented as a contagion, with Muslims as the afflicted, helpless to their own hostile impulses. What is different about the current crisis is that it comes in the aftermath of the 'Arab Spring' - another series of intricate events depicted as interconnected and inevitable. Democracy would 'spread' from one Muslim country to another, analysts argued, regardless of the unique historical trajectories of individual states. Some analysts wet so far as to suggest it would spread to Central Asia, a region of largely isolationist dictatorships uninfluenced by Middle Eastern politics. The current protests are being portrayed as an 'Arab Winter' - a simplistic reversal of a simplistic perception of success, with Muslims, undifferentiated, receiving the blame.

   There is, of course, cohesion among Muslims, in the sense that there is cohesion among followers of any faith. The notion of the umma is an essential part of Islamic doctrine. But the way the idea of 'the Muslim world' is expressed within Islamic communities is different from the way it is expressed outside them. It is rare to hear the phrase 'the Christian world' used in the English-language media, because doing so would generalize about the motives of over 2 billion people. No such respect applies to the world's 1.5 billion Muslims. Googling the phrase 'the Christian world' yields 5.8 million results, while the phrase 'the Muslim world' yields 87 million results, many of them wandering what is 'wrong' with the queried target. When the phrase 'the Muslim world' is invoked, it is usually to reduce, denigrate, or impugn."

Changing

 The weekend before last we headed to the local Grange to attend a Bob Dylan Wannabe Concert to raise money for the Montpelier free clinic - and, of course, knew people on stage - all of which is about the most Vermont thing you could possibly say. It was one of those bittersweet evenings. On the one hand it was a reminder, and one that I guess I didn't need, of what a special community we live in. On the other hand, it was almost painful for everyone to join together at the end for a group singalong of The Times They Are A-Changin'. There were a lot of 70 year old who gave their times and money in support of a noble cause, and championing the spirit of the 1960s in the process, while at the same time the majority of the young men in my class are visiting for Trump. 

At the end all of the performers sang a rousing version of The Times They Are A-Changin', which was both lovely, and as I proposed above, heartbreaking.

We were so happy that G3 and Ali were able to join us for the performance. 

Noli, Ali's sister, a proud possessor of her first driver's license, drove up to the wilderness for the weekend.

My friend Art, who I've known for twenty years through Champlain, was performing, and it was great to see him. It reminded us to get together more often for breakfast.

2025 Readings 36

 I'm embarrassed to admit that I followed Sarah Kendzior for years on Twitter but had never read one of her books. My great friend, and office-mate, Erik dropped off a copy of The Last American Road Trip the other day, along with one of his masterfully forged autographs (or maybe it was simply nice of Kendzior to write me a personal note). I blew through The Last American Road Trip in a couple days and have gone right into The View from Flyover Country, her first book. The former is her latest book and it reflects upon a series of family trips that she and her husband took their two kids on, while there was still an America to see. From this framework she's able to include a fair bit of criticism of what's happening to America, but what really comes through is her love of the country and her sadness at what is happening to it. Beyond everything else, she's also a very powerful writer. The book, as with all her books, is highly recommended. Let me just include a short section, dealing with her response to hearing that Roe v Wade had been overturned:

   "Missouri is a trigger state, which means that ban on abortion prohibited by Roe's 1973 passage would become law once federal protections were struck down. At some point, I know, I would become a second-class citizen. One morning, I would wake up and legal protections I had known my entire life would be gone. One day, everything would be the same except my husband and son would have more right than me and my daughter, and I would have to explain to my children why. I have never had an abortion and have no intention of getting gone, but that is true of many women who end up getting abortions. The perverse pain of the Roe reversal was how it made me feel like a failure, above all, as a mother: the very identity the state prescribed. I could not protect my daughter from the government. Our bodies were state property now.

   When the day came - June 24, 2022 - I knocked on the door of my husband's makeshift pandemic home office, said 'they overturned Roe,' and left before he could respond. I got in my car and drove to Creve Coeur Lake, an offshoot of the Missouri River where I go kayaking in the summer. Creve Coeur is French for 'broken heart' but I didn't know that because no one knows how to pronounce or interpret Missouri French. 'Creev Core,' we say, we unsophisticated rubes whom the Supreme Court had made cattle - cattle that so many different forces wanted to corral.

   I kayaked until my hands blistered and bled, and while I was out on the water the attorney general of Missouri signed away my bodily autonomy. I don't know the exact moment it happened, whether it was when I saw a duck shielding her ducklings and started to cry, or when I passed an elderly woman drifting under a highway bridge, her face streaked with tears, and she put on sunglasses so they would not show, or when the clouds darkened the lake with the threat of rain and I thought, Bring it. You cannot do anything worse to me today. Show me some action. Give ma a battle I can fight. And then the clouds parted, and in the light of the sun I saw the blood on my palms like a stigma, like stigmata. I knew God did not want this and that state officials did not care about god because they had decided to replace him with themselves."

Moonie

 I've been pestering my friends today with this odd trivia question: Who are the three individuals who are in the CFL and NFL Halls of Fame? The first answer is an easy one, and not simply because I had already sent around the picture below: Warren Moon. The other two are more of a challenge: Bud Grant and Marv Levy. The fact that Grant and Levy are a combined 0-8 in the Super Bowl probably signifies something important. It's also interesting that two of the three Double Hall of Famers have Vikings connections. Weird. Of course, as I've doubtless mentioned too many times on blog (I mean, come on, you don't close in on 3000 posts without repeating yourself) the fact that led me to the CFL in the first place was that I learned early on that Grant had coached (wildly successfully) in the CFL before he moved on to the NFL (where even his brilliance as coach couldn't overcome the Curse of the Vikings). Anyway, I guess I'm now one step closer to being fully prepared for June's CFL Doubleheader of Excellence. Oh, one final thought: I had to have this Warren Moon jersey made, as you might have figured out since he played for the Edmonton Eskimos and not the Edmonton Elks (same franchise, just a name change a couple years ago). For some reason you couldn't order player jerseys on the Elks webpage (which probably doesn't say much about how good they are at the moment). 

I think it was all worth it for the comped Elks lanyard and decals.

2025 Readings 35

 Last night I finished Voices of the Fallen Heroes, a collection of late Yukio Mishima short stories. Over the decades I've read a lot of his work, including Forbidden Colors, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, The Sound of Waves, Death in Midsummer, and his Sea of Fertility tetralogy (Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, and The Decay of the Angel; these four novels make my all-time favorite list, and I've read the collection multiple times - and it may be time for another read). It was odd to think that he was writing these short stories at the same time as the last couple volumes of the Sea of Fertility collection. 

Vermont Public Philosophy Week 2025

 Here's a nice picture of Janet, dominating at our Vermont Public Philosophy Week Doubleheader a couple Saturdays back. We had fifteen people stop by, which was a solid turnout, especially on a cold and rainy day and during a time that coincided with an anti-Trump rally downtown in Montpelier (we weren't counter-programming, obviously, and would have been down there ourselves, but we scheduled the talks several weeks before the protest). Janet discussed co-ops and community and read from her book, and I blathered away about Fernando Pessoa. Oddly, three people showed up who had read a goodly amount of Pessoa and had seen my talk listed on the Philosophy Week website. Who knew that Pessoa would be a draw? Although, and not surprisingly, Janet drew more folks than I did (which clearly says something good about her - and her community).

The Adamant Community Club is a great spot for a talk, although it's a more beautiful view out the window almost every other month of the year.

2025 Readings 34

 Yesterday I finished reading Vida Scudder's autobiography, On Journey. I included a Family label on this post, although I think that's a stretch. Yes, there aren't that many Scudders in the world, but I think our lines of the Scudder crew veered apart back in England. Still, I still claim her, mainly because, as I say way too often, she's the other socialist Scudder (socialism is definitely a recessive gene in our broader family). She certainly led an amazing life, from being born in India (as so many Scudders have over the years, which is why I think I was genetically determined to go to India), but then leaving early on after the drowning death of her missionary father, to eventually being a college professor and author and socialist and having her own feast day on the Episcopalian calendar. She was also lived a committed relationship with Florence Converse for decades, so I guess she has so many qualities that the radical right would hate today. I think their relationship was a well-known fact at the time, although it's handled gently in the autobiography, which I completely understand and respect for multiple reasons. However, she also doesn't dodge the reality of their relationship entirely, but instead handles it in a very understated and casual fashion. In this passage she discusses her living arrangements with her mother and with Florence: "So we settled at Wellesley (gs - where Vida taught); and it was lucky that the house had grown bigger than first planned, for neither my mother nor I wished seclusion. Someone always shared our home, and in 1919. Florence Converse and her mother came to make one family with us. Miss Converse had for years shared my life in all ways except in living under the same roof. Now that Joy was given us, and we have never been separated since."

There are so many beautiful passages, ranging from her views on socialism to faith to even her cats. Here's one of my favorites, reflecting up on her view of immortality:

"I fear I have never really made that Act. Immortality does not interest me. Stress on duration seems to me the note of an imprisoned mind. Now, this fleeting instant, I experience the Eternal and it suffices me:

          'He who kissed a joy as it flies/Lives in eternity's sunrise.'

Survival? It is to me an unreal conception. Moreover, by what right do I demand from Deity a privilege which I have no reason to expect my cats to share? Or the roses in the garden? Though looking at the matter from another angle, I should not be surprised to find that all the roses which have ever bloomed on earth, blossom forever in the Paradise of God."

Maybe I'll come back to this post and amend it later, adding more of her observations on life.

It's sad that she doesn't receive more attention. Her book Socialism and Character is queued up for one of my next reads.

Elks

 Yesterday I bought our tickets for the Edmonton Elks game in June, so the trip is starting to come together. Now I just have to wait a couple weeks for the Calgary Stampeders tickets to go on sale so that we're set. The Elks tickets are great, right on the 55 yard line. After this trip I'll have visited six of the nine CFL stadiums, and the challenge will be getting to the last three. These two games will certainly not be my only CFL games of the season: #VermontsLeadingCFLFan

Back To Me

 The other night I finally got the chance to see Kathleen Edwards in concert. We had briefly met years ago - as chronicled in this blog - when, on a drive across Canada, I swung over to Ottawa and stopped by Quitter's Coffee (the coffeeshop she ran during her temporary retirement from the music industry). She could not have been more gracious during my visit years ago, and I was really excited about finally getting a chance to see her perform in person. I'm a huge fan, and have been for twenty years, and a couple of her songs have been "the song" of different times of my life. It was a wonderful show, and I heartily recommend that you take the opportunity to see her if she comes anyplace close to your town.

I was less blurry pictures from the show, but not a picture that I like more than this one.

Kevin, Mike, and Cyndi - which made the event even more fun. As I told Mike at one point, referencing one of my favorite Edwards's song, I hoped he understood how much I appreciated all that times that he and his wife Jamie had been my soft place to land.

Missing Friends

 OK, so I shamelessly (although with permission) swiped this picture from my friend Heidi. She ran into our friend Sean at a conference (one of the best reasons to go to an academic conference is to catch up with friends). We're all in the same fantasy football league (and, similarly, maybe the best reason to play fantasy football is to keep in touch with folks),  but I don't see them nearly enough.

I miss these two way too much.

2025 Readings 33

 I just finished yet another reading of Homer's Iliad. Partially, I'm trying to finish my chapter on the Iliad for my book (never to be finished manuscript) on the Epics, and Homer's epic will serve as the first chapter in the envisioned work. Granted, the Ramayana is older, but I wanted to start with something that folks might be more familiar with, so that I can lay out the recurring structure of each chapter. So, with that in mind, the first half of the book would be: Ch 1: Iliad, Ch. 2, Aeneid, Ch. 3, Ramayana, Ch. 4, Shahnameh, Ch. 5 Journey to the West. The second half of the imagined book would be the thematic chapters, such as Ch. 6 on Heroism and Ch. 7 on Gender, etc. 

However, saying that, the other reason why I gave it a reread (of a seemingly endless series of rereads) is that I simply love the Iliad. Every time I read it I get something new out of it, and I can't imagine that I'll ever tire of it. Truthfully, I get so much more out of it than I did when I read it decades ago, and the desire to share what I've learned - and the tools that I've given students to make these epics more accessible - is at the core of my desire to write this book in the first place. Several sections jumped out at me this time, and I wondered why they didn't resonate with me as much previously. Maybe I just have more wisdom/experience or maybe I'm just giving the book more of my time and attention. One of the lines that spoke to me this time, not surprisingly, was from Nestor, the aged Greek who gives sage advice, while celebrating and lamenting the passing of time. In Book 23, during the games that were held to commemorate the passing of Patroclus, Nestor, in response to Achilles awarding him a prize because he is too old to complete, says:

"You've put the matter very well, my son.

My legs are strong no longer, as you say;

I am not fast on my feet; my hands no longer 

move out fast to punch or throw. Would god 

I had my young days back my strength entire . . .

That was the man I was. Now let the young 

take part in these exertions: I must yield 

to show old age, though in my time I shone 

among heroic men.

                                          Well, carry on

the funeral of your friend with competitions.

This I take kindly, and my heart is cheered 

that you remember me as well disposed, 

remembering, too, the honor that is due me 

among Akhaians. May the gods 

in fitting ways reward you for it all."

Casual History

 On our second (or third, depending how you count it) visit to Evora I spent part of a lovely day roaming around town. One of the many strengths of our relationship is that Janet and I are very comfortable with the other one carving off time for their own interests or internal schedules, which works on the macro-level (she's heading off to Iowa this summer for a writer's conference whereas I'm heading off to Portugal to present at a conference, while also skiving off to Alberta for a CFL doubleheader; obviously, she's the more serious scholar/person) and the micro-level (as is well-documented, I'm the early revolutionary riser and she takes a more evolutionary approach to starting the day). When we're overseas, this usually takes the form of me getting up early for breakfast and then going for an exploratory walk. On that particular day in Evora, while Janet gave into the overwhelming peace and serenity of the Convent, I ubered into town and went for a walkabout, or at least as much of a walkabout as I could pull off (I remember it being one of those days when my legs were very unhappy with me). I've travelled enough in Italy or, for that matter, Jordan, so I'm used to seeing Roman ruins, so I guess it didn't surprise me to find a temple in the heart of Evora. Still, it was beautiful, and so much a natural part of the city. I was just elected to the Calais Historical Preservation Commission, which I'm enjoying and am looking forward to serving on, but it definitely brings you back to history and real history. I think what struck me about the ruins in Evora was how they were just integrated into the city itself as a very casual and natural part of the city life (in this way I guess it's sort of a microcosm of the entire Portuguese experience).

The ruins, now around two thousand years old, are a temple dedicated to the Emperor Augustus.

2025 Readings 33

 As I mentioned earlier, as part of this project to track my readings for 2025 I'm also forcing/allowing/encouraging myself to read authors or genres that aren't normally on my list. I do think I fall into the habit of reading an awful lot of novels, especially novels from certain authors, and works on religion, whereas I could/should broaden my focus and include new authors or works on, say, history, which is an odd thing for a historian to say. However, after saying that, I suspect that I usually have a more diverse palette than most folks, even before this year's effort. For instance, when I'm at Northshire in Manchester I'm likely to pick up a book or two from the new fiction or staff suggestions section. With that in mind, on my recent visit to Northshire I picked up Jayne Anne Phillips's Night Watch, which I finished last night. Obviously, she's a very good, and rightly celebrated, writer, although I don't think I loved this particular novel. It seems to me that you can think of an interesting story, but that doesn't mean that you necessarily tell it in an interesting fashion. The story rotated between events in 1874 (at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum) and 1864 (covering background events during the Civil War), before finally summing things up in 1883. Sometimes when authors try to achieve a level of mystery they can end up just being needlessly opaque, and thus more difficult to follow than is merited by the interest of the characters. The end felt a bit rushed and convenient, sort of like some Dickens novels where hidden connections are suddenly revealed that tie things up but not in a convincing or satisfying way. This all sounds more critical than I intend, because I did like the story. I do want to read Phillips's Lark and Termite, which I hear is excellent.

Home

 But, in spite of so much sorrow in the world at the moment, I'm very blessed. Five years ago I would have never thought that I'd find someone again or experience such a profound level of happiness. And where would I be without these two (and, of course, Miss Mollie, my constant lap companion).

It is scientifically impossible to get a shot wherein Cici is more still than this one, whereas you could complete a painting of Miss Mollie in real time.

The Pain of the Painful Surprise

 The human soul is so inevitably the victim of pain that it suffers the pain of the painful surprise even with things it should have expected.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, text 245

Yesterday I was having a chat with a colleague on why our students are so remarkably disinterested this semester. Yes, on the one hand this sounds like a conversation that every professor has had with a colleague since the beginning of time (including my professors about me, doubtless), but on the other hand there is definitely something going on here. In my forty years of teaching I've never experienced a semester where there have been so many absences and late papers and general disinterest. Granted, maybe I've simply, finally, lost it as a professor - or maybe I've grown so old that the consistent ageism of my students (and my colleagues, for that matter) has overwhelmed me. However, I think it's more than that. For decades now the corporate and anti-democratic elements of our country have been attacking expertise. One way to diminish the inconvenient truth of climate change is to shoot the messenger, championing, and somehow equating, the less than one percent of scientists who downplay the danger we're facing. Certainly all professors were hit with shrapnel in that war. Now we've reached the point where the VP is identifying the professors as the enemy. However, I think it's even bigger than that. This generation has had to begin its college and professional careers with the knowledge that they'd probably never be able to buy a house, essentially facing the prospect of having less than the previous generation in the history of the American experiment. Hence, a college education is a more stressful than what I faced, where I wasn't facing crippling debt and could actually just focus on reading great books and discussing great thoughts. We've completely commodified a college education and removed the magic associated with it. But I think it's even bigger than that. With the horror of the Trump administration we're facing an almost existential crisis as a nation, and even though my students are remarkably un-self-aware, they must at least realize that something terrible id brewing. From our side of things we're also suffering a sense of helplessness, and, sliding back up to the top for the Pessoa quote, even though we knew it was going to be a freak show it doesn't make the pain any less debilitating.

2025 Readings 32

 I just finished listening to Elizabeth Vandiver's Great Courses series The Iliad of Homer. This must be the third or fourth time I've listened to it, and I feel like I get something new from it every time (as I do with the Iliad itself). I'm trying to finish my chapter on the Iliad in my probably never to be finished book on the Epics. Essentially, it's done, but I can't convince myself that it's done. There are times when I want to just dump the entire project, and it's become a sort of albatross around my neck. There are just other projects I want to start or continue working on, but I don't feel I can do anything with them until the Epics project is completed wrapped up; at this point I don't know if it even mattes whether or not it's published, I just need to be finished with it. Maybe simply knowing that I've done everything I can do with it will give me some peace of mine on it. My thinking is that I'd like to send off my chapter on the Iliad, which leads off the book, and then on Women in the Epics, which is featured in the second half of the project. That would give an agent/publisher and idea of the larger scope of the book, and while that is slowly working its way through the system I can put the final touches on the rest of the chapters. I've been reading Vida Scudder's autobiography and it gives me some hope that she wrote sixteen books after she retired.

Groan Redux

 If it seems like it's the end of March that is apparently a delusion, although it's clearly not warm enough to qualify as a fever dream.

Greed

 After brooding over the question for several weeks, this morning I went ahead and cancelled my Audible membership. On one level it was hard to do, because I have a long commute and books on tape and Great Courses help make the drive manageable. Essentially, I don't mind the drive as much if I feel that I'm learning something at the same time. I recently made the decision to stop ordering things from Amazon, although it has often made my life a lot easier because I could track down objects, especially books, which would have been difficult to acquire. However, simply because I can punch a button on my phone and have a book magically appear at my doorstep doesn't make the process an ethical one. And if I'm going to ween myself off of Amazon, it didn't make much sense of keep Audible. Bezos climbing into bed with the other oligarchs in their adulation of Trump made all of this an easier decision. There was a time when millionaires invested their money in building libraries, whereas now they alternate between creating vanity spaceships and overthrowing our democracy. I was asked for a reason why I was cancelling my Audible account, so I simply wrote: "Greed of Jeff Bezos."

2025 Readings 31

My good friend Kerry is a huge Ursula K. Le Guin fan and has suggested her books to me several times over the years. However, somehow I've never tackled them. I guess I'm not a big science fiction fan, although the science fiction I like I tend to like a lot. In the end I ended up reading Le Guin's The Dispossessed because Janet came across a Substack discussion of the novel, and she decided to set up a local book chat. She and I have been thinking a lot about community lately, even as we seriously plan to leave this one that we love. Her decision to set up the chat - and our decision to present as part of Vermont Public Philosophy Week - reflect our desire to be part of the community, but also to take part of something positive, as compared to just giving into the temptation to rail against the authoritarian takeover of America. As we say in Islam, small kindnesses are a foundational part of making a better world. Anyway, we've had some lovely conversations with our little community that showed up to read The Dispossessed, and we're already talking about selecting another book to keep the momentum going. In regards to the book, I liked it a lot, and ended up liking it more than the other members of the group.

2025 Readings 30

 It's bizarre to think that in my long life I had never managed to read all of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. To be fair, it's one of those works which gave us so many familiar passages that the average person would never even associated with the poem: "Water, water, everywhere,/Nor any drop to drink," or "A sadder and a wiser man/He rose the morrow morn," or "He prayeth best, who loveth best/All things both great and small," or "And till my ghastly tale is told,/This heart within my burns." Some classic works don't age well, but, especially in this horrible, heartless age, Coleridge's message continues to resonate.

2025 Readings 29

 I recently finished Paul Tillich's The Courage to Be. He was briefly discussed in Charles Mathewes's Great Courses lectures on Why Evil Exists. Tillich's The Courage to Be, which is his work designed for a popular audience - as compared to his three volume masterwork Systematic Theology - was still a challenging read. I listened to it on Audible, which made it harder to pause for a deeper reflection, obviously, but I did what I normally do in situation like that - I sometimes pull the car over and email myself a note about a certain chapter. Of course, trying to find a physical copy of The Courage to Be proved to more challenging that I figured, since the local library in Montpelier doesn't have one. However, I will track one down, because I would like to revisit this work in greater depth. Tillich discussed the role of anxiety in the development of the self, focusing on the Anxiety of Death (which he associated with the beginnings of Christianity), the Anxiety of Faith (which he associated with the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation), and the Anxiety of Meaninglessness (which he associates with the 20th century and beyond). Obviously, these are not purely chronological phenomena, and they can exist concurrently today. In response, he discussed the need to focus on the concept of Being, including coming to terms with Non-Being. This is the part of his argument that is going to require that I track down a physical copy of the book for a more sustained reflection and analysis. Tillich talked about reaching the God beyond God, that is, not the theistic God that is limited by our perceptions of essence and existence, and who turns us into a mere Object (in fact, Tillich proposes, I would say correctly, that placing God in a Subject/Object relationship with us is also insulting to God), and instead is existence. I found this notion really moving, even as I struggled to truly get my brain around it. Again, I need to track down a physical copy for serious study.

2025 Readings 28

 As part of this year's goal of not only recording what I'm reading, but also giving myself more time to read. That includes, tackling books that I wouldn't normally consider. With that in mind, I just blew through Tana French's The Searcher. It's funny, I don't think of myself as someone who reads mystery or detective novels, but I've also read all of Arthur Conan Doyles's Sherlock Holmes short stories and novels (several times) and all of Craig Johnson's Longmire series and almost everything that James Ellroy has ever written. So, obviously, apparently I do read detective novels. On a lark I picked up Tana French's The Searcher when I was roaming around the Northshire bookstore in Manchester. I didn't realize that she had already written a number of novels, and was a quite successful author. All of this goes to show how we pigeon hole ourselves. As it turns out I enjoined the book quite a bit and blew through it very quickly, and might go back and read a couple of her earlier works. I didn't love the novel, but I liked it quite a bit, so now I have to decide whether to buy the next one of her novels or get it out of the library in Montpelier. I tend to always buy, mainly because I'd rather do what I can to support authors (even the successful ones). However, I'm also starting to consider a future overseas, and any book I read will be one I need to sort out. Anyway, I liked The Searcher and I can envision revisiting some of French's other works. 

2025 Readings 27

 OK, so it definitely seems to be cheating if you're recording the books that you read in the year, and include the Qur'an during Ramadan. So, I guess I'll have to give you that one. However, it is one of the books that I've read in 2025. As I've proposed several time on this blog, my favorite part of Ramadan is the extra time that we can devote to rereading and studying the Qur'an. I would argue that we focus too much attention on fasting, which I suspect is simply because it's easier to quantify. If we're so tired and hungry that we can't focus during our Quranic study, then it seems to me that we've allowed fasting to become the sort of distraction that we warn ourselves against. What amazes me every year is how I keep discovering new things as I work my way through my tattered  copy of Syed Nasr's The Study Quran. There is something beautiful - and necessary - about a consistent deep dive into a complex text. One morning this year I was reading one of Nasr's points (in his voluminous commentary) about praying, and I thought of something that I had never thought of before - or at least thought of something in a different way. It occurred to me the almost parallel similarity between the macro-world of our eternal spiritual life and the micro-world of our daily prayers. In my mind, it looked something like this:

             Death - - - - - - - - - - - - - Life - - - - - - - - - - - - Death

             Prayer - - - - - - -Time Between Prayer - - - - - - Prayer

In a monotheistic tradition where you only live one life, you almost need the time before and after life to make it all make sense. In Hinduism you just keep coming back until you work off your karmic shortcoming, so in the end, even if it may take thousands of lifetimes, everything will balance out and things will be fair and just. However, with one lifetime it almost certainly can't be fair and just, unless you take the much longer view of the time both after but also before you are alive. Essentially, you are with God during those times, and the time in-between, even if God is closer than your jugular vein (as we are told in the Qur'an), you're still not with God. As I was thinking about it that early morning, it seemed to me that the micro equivalent would be our daily time with prayer, with the time we are praying separated by the time where we are forced to go out into the crass and materialistic and decidedly non-spiritual world, before once again coming back into contact with the beautiful. Now, I don't even know if this makes any sense, and I'm still working my way through it. However, it spoke to me of the beauty of Ramadan, and, more generally, the necessity of carving off time for a deep dive into texts, whether the text is the Qur'an or The Book of Disquiet or the Meditations or the Iliad or Bleak House; there's always more time find. However, my joy was short-lived when I read the email from school celebrating the partnership that we're signing with an AI firm. More and more, it's clear that I don't fit in with the college to which I've given a quarter-century of my life.