What I'm Reading: 13 December 2015

by Brandon Wainscott

A few things, but one of them Arnold Toynbee's A Study of History. It's more of a daily read, not a through, hour plus long read. You can see I have it opened on a stand, and for about thirty minutes I read. The book is really more a philosophy of history than a history. So far it's very enjoyable. I feel like such a scholar! However, that is what I am reading, along with War and Peace, but I will leave that until next time.

Regarding the book, I agree with Toynbee that history is not based on nations, so much as universal nature. At least I gather that from a brief skim of Wikipedia. It is important to understand history on more than a factual level, such as when the Declaration of Independence was signed, or when Lincoln was assassinated. It is important to not only know the, let us call it local causes and factors, but the universal, archetypal factors that contribute to such a thing. The assassination of Caesar weighs in obviously, but that is merely a comparison. The question is the tyranny or perceived tyranny of Lincoln's leadership; for in these things it does not matter if he was truly a tyrant, anymore than it matters is Caesar was. Brutus thought Caesar was, and John Wilkes Booth thought....well, you see what I am getting at, and that seems to be what Toynbee wants us to understand about history.

This books is massive--the book I have, as you can see, is huge. It was published in twelve volumes, and this is all of them. Much of it is pictures though! Yay! A picture book! Seriously, but the images are a means to convey the philosophy. Relative paintings, icons, photographs of the matter that is at hand.

If you like history, Toynbee is a must. His work is massive, but you need not read it in his entirety. It can be there on your bookshelf to make you look smart. Or une simple décoration! No, a thing you look at from time to time if nothing else.


--B.

PS...Also reading, though I may have to put it down for other things, Tacitus' The Annals of Imperial Rome. I think it is a book more akin to Toynbee's idea of the study of history.

First Post

So, I hope to get views of this blog through social media, etc, but for now I am writing pretty much for myself. But social media is really an amazing thing and means to 'fame' for all its faults. Like Facebook--I hate it, yet am addicted to it. I miss MySpace. I miss those days. I think MySpace was genuine and simple, but honestly I don't trust Mark Zuckerberg. Well, I won't get into that except to say that: they're watching. No, not tin foil hat stuff--its called the NSA. I think Mark 'helps' them. Yes, what you post is public, but you do have you privates messages, and the NSA is not like the local police, who are not looking at your Facebook like some glorified stalker. Dare I use that ubiquitous term 'creeper'? Actually, I may talk about politics in the future, but not in the beginning.

The purpose of this blog is to talk about books--mostly. And maybe publish some writing. So a couple of things to begin. Big fan of Dostoevsky. I may do a comparison of him and Tolstoy soon. It's interesting the difference between them. But at present, I am reading Jane Austen's Emma, and I really dislike it. Not quite hate though. Jane Austen is a great writer, but a Victorian prude. Everything is so nice and dandy, and nothing really bad happens. No sex. No murder. No making out. I don't actually expect sex scenes, it's just I'd like a little realistic human, romantic interaction. It's all just so formal, and I know we are much more casual today, but I know they weren't that formal back then. But I'll bash more in a bit.

Tolstoy. I am reading War and Peace. His description of dialogue, and description in general, is very detailed. He is very visual. He reminds me of well...me. There are different views among writers on dialogue, description, etc. Some are minimalists. More or less "he said"/"she said", with some more original uses of that. Maybe a brief description or voice or action from time to time. Tolstoy is very detailed in his dialogue, and in general.

Austen, on the other hand, is minimal. However, she does a good job of allowing us to understand and see her characters. I can see the proud Emma. I can see her neurotic father. But there is little "action" following the dialogue.

So, to end. Austen just is so bloody formal. A couple of quotes from other writers of her age. Mark Twain:

“I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin bone!” 

Chrarlotte Bronte:

what did I find? An accurate, daguerreotyped portrait of a commonplace face; a carefully-fenced, high-cultivated garden with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of a bright, vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen in their elegant but confined houses.”

Well said, madame. Yes, everything is so tight and perfect! And she says, too:

“[A]nything like warmth or enthusiasm, anything energetic, poignant, heartfelt, is utterly out of place in commending these works: all such demonstrations the authoress would have met with a well-bred sneer, would have calmly scorned as outré or extravagant. She does her business of delineating the surface of the lives of genteel English people curiously well… [But] She no more, with her mind’s eye, beholds the heart of her race than each man, with bodily vision, sees the heart in his heaving breast. Jane Austen was a complete and most sensible lady, but a very incomplete and rather insensible (not senseless) woman.” Oh, snaps. 

For all Austen's stories about love, it is interesting she died a maid. This may be random,, and it is not a derogatory accusation. If she was, so be it. But maybe she was a lesbian? Maybe she had no feelings for men, so never married? A quick Google search shows that this has been asked more than a few times. Was Shakespeare gay? Maybe. I think we can get a bit obsessed with all that, but it is interesting to consider for curiosity, or  to understand the literature better. We should not get caught up with it since it biases our interpretation and study of their writings. We cannot be sure, and I'm 50/50 on Shakespeare's sexuality. Austen it is more of a guess or little question.