I am going to share a secret with my readers: I don't have time to read all I wish to read, and then write reviews and commentary on all I read for use on this blog. If I try to read a great many worthwhile books, I can only produce reviews of them at rather long intervals. If, on the other hand, I try to write more commentary on events of the day, articles in the periodical literature, and so on, I won't have time to read enough books to provide subjects for my reviews. So it goes.
I posted a review of The Commission: The Uncensored Story of the 9/11 Investigation a few days ago. I would like for some of you to comment on the review (there are three comments so far, including my response to a reader.) I would like even more for some of you to read the book and then come back here to provide us with your own comments on it. Those of you who have read the 9/11 Commission Report might also tell us how Philip Shenon's account of the investigation and writing sorts with the report itself. (I have not yet read the report.)
I suppose I'd like to see more dialogue and debate here, and I'd like to have less of the feeling that I'm sealing messages into wine flasks and casting them into the sea. Perhaps book reviews are too much of a "closed" medium to attract a lot of comment.
This is the date of William Wordsworth's birth in 1770. Bertrand Russell said of Wordsworth: 'In his youth Wordsworth sympathized with the French Revolution, went to France, wrote good poetry, and had a natural daughter. At this period, he was called a 'bad' man. Then he became 'good,' abandoned his daughter, adopted correct principles, and wrote bad poetry."
Russell often preferred to be clever, rather than kind, and this may have been one of those occasions. I wonder if Russell was asserting that Wordsworth was a good poet (and a more sympathetic character) only when he was bad, and that good art is associated with bad behavior. Perhaps he was only suggesting that there is no correlation between one's morals and one's artistic abilities. It may come as a shock to some of you, but there doesn't seem to be any consistent relationship between one's "goodness" and one's skill at a given art or craft.
This may be because "goodness" is judged by society on the basis of conformity to standards of outward behavior, while artistic talent is judged by one's work product's conformity to standards of beauty.
I have been reading the book of Mark in the New Testament. My current reading plan has me reading a couple of chapters every day for a week, before going on to the next selection. In Chapter 7, Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for preferring their traditions to God's laws. He goes on to say that it is not what goes into a man that makes him unclean, but what comes out of him, as lust, immorality, and so on. There may be less to this than meets the eye. Whether one is condemning a violation of the dietary law or judging the goodness of a person's heart, what one has to go by is the person's behavior. Perhaps eating pork does not make one unclean, but would a good person eat pork, knowing that such an act would be offensive to the community?
On this date in 1775, Samuel Johnson declared, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." I'm not so sure. In this day and age, a lot of scoundrels have chosen religion as their last refuge. Moreover, while a scoundrel may use patriotism as a refuge, many good people may perform patriotic acts of sacrifice. Does a scoundrel's use of patriotic cover may all patriotism suspect?
By the way, the Current Reading sidebar of the blog provides you with the titles of the books I am now reading. If you run out and find copies of them now, you could finish reading them by the time I come out with my review.
Glenn A Knight
In my study
Showing posts with label French literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label French literature. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Sunday, September 30, 2007
The Algerian Connection
A few observations on the last day of the month, the last day of the third quarter, the 273rd day of the year: September 30, 2007.
I have a little book called A Book of Days for the Literary Year, a gift some years ago from my younger sister Nancy. Among its notes for September 30 is this: 1937 Albert Camus notes: "It is in order to shine sooner that authors refuse to rewrite. Despicable. Begin again."
Camus was a fine writer, if somewhat crazy. The story goes that he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature at a relatively early age because the committee was aware that his lifestyle made it unlikely that he would live to be old. He was awarded the prize in 1957, just fifty years ago, and he died in 1960. According to my almanac, he was awarded the prize "for his important literary production, which with clearsighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times."
Camus was counted as a French author, and, of course, he wrote in French and was a French citizen. He was, however, as Alistair Horne puts it, a typical pied noir. This is an expression applied to the French and, quite often, Spanish, settlers of Algeria after the French took it in 1830. Generations of pied noirs lived and died in Algerie francaise. Camus most famous novels, La Peste (The Plague) and L'Etranger (The Stranger) are set in Algeria. They are very effective novels, and they evoke Algeria, at least French Algeria, very successfully. The Algerian sun is very nearly a character in L'Etranger. Having lived in Algiers (1979-80), I can testify that the sun is very much with one in Algeria.
I saw the line from Alistair Horne in his The Savage War of Peace, which I have just started reading. It was originally published in 1977, but there is a 2006 edition in trade paperback. It has a very good reputation, and the other works by Horne I've read (many years ago) were quite good. I'm looking forward to it. Horne has a number of references to a literary/historical conference held in Algiers in 1984, on the 30th anniversary of the revolution. I missed that one, but I was in Algiers for the 25th anniversary, at which celebration the U.S. was represented by Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's national security advisor. That was the week that our embassy in Teheran was captured, and the assistance of the Algerian government on that occasion led to their continuing involvement in the negotiations for the American hostages in Iran.
In later March and early April of this year I happened to read a memoir by Robert Gates, now Secretary of Defense. I was interested to note that Mr. Gates accompanied Dr. Brzezinski to Algiers. Gates' account mentions some circumstances that lead me to believe I may have met him, or, more probably, that we were both in the room at the Aurassi Hotel with Dr. Brzezinski at the same time. The trip to Algiers wasn't a big part of Mr. Gates' career, or his account of it. But I found it interesting that our career arcs, his steeply upward, mine much less regular, crossed at that out-of-the way point.
My opinions on the war in Iraq and how it has been handled have been influenced by my time in Algeria, and I wonder if Mr. Gates gained any insights into Arab life that have helped him deal with his current responsibilities.
I have a little book called A Book of Days for the Literary Year, a gift some years ago from my younger sister Nancy. Among its notes for September 30 is this: 1937 Albert Camus notes: "It is in order to shine sooner that authors refuse to rewrite. Despicable. Begin again."
Camus was a fine writer, if somewhat crazy. The story goes that he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature at a relatively early age because the committee was aware that his lifestyle made it unlikely that he would live to be old. He was awarded the prize in 1957, just fifty years ago, and he died in 1960. According to my almanac, he was awarded the prize "for his important literary production, which with clearsighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times."
Camus was counted as a French author, and, of course, he wrote in French and was a French citizen. He was, however, as Alistair Horne puts it, a typical pied noir. This is an expression applied to the French and, quite often, Spanish, settlers of Algeria after the French took it in 1830. Generations of pied noirs lived and died in Algerie francaise. Camus most famous novels, La Peste (The Plague) and L'Etranger (The Stranger) are set in Algeria. They are very effective novels, and they evoke Algeria, at least French Algeria, very successfully. The Algerian sun is very nearly a character in L'Etranger. Having lived in Algiers (1979-80), I can testify that the sun is very much with one in Algeria.
I saw the line from Alistair Horne in his The Savage War of Peace, which I have just started reading. It was originally published in 1977, but there is a 2006 edition in trade paperback. It has a very good reputation, and the other works by Horne I've read (many years ago) were quite good. I'm looking forward to it. Horne has a number of references to a literary/historical conference held in Algiers in 1984, on the 30th anniversary of the revolution. I missed that one, but I was in Algiers for the 25th anniversary, at which celebration the U.S. was represented by Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's national security advisor. That was the week that our embassy in Teheran was captured, and the assistance of the Algerian government on that occasion led to their continuing involvement in the negotiations for the American hostages in Iran.
In later March and early April of this year I happened to read a memoir by Robert Gates, now Secretary of Defense. I was interested to note that Mr. Gates accompanied Dr. Brzezinski to Algiers. Gates' account mentions some circumstances that lead me to believe I may have met him, or, more probably, that we were both in the room at the Aurassi Hotel with Dr. Brzezinski at the same time. The trip to Algiers wasn't a big part of Mr. Gates' career, or his account of it. But I found it interesting that our career arcs, his steeply upward, mine much less regular, crossed at that out-of-the way point.
My opinions on the war in Iraq and how it has been handled have been influenced by my time in Algeria, and I wonder if Mr. Gates gained any insights into Arab life that have helped him deal with his current responsibilities.
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