Notes towards a ridiculous summer reading list
First, it occurred to me that, in so far as Thucydides had to leave the army, The Peloponnesian War is a history written by a loser. But I'm not going to read that over the summer; I'm just mentioning it because I can't find my fucking Aristotle! I know that I have both the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics, but I can't locate them. At first I was inclined to blame my organizational scheme (Greek drama, Homer, Thucydides, and Virgil in translation go here, but Virgil in Latin goes with Horace and Catullus go there, along with Ferdinandus Taurus and Famous Women and reference books; Plato goes yet there and shares the space with a collection of Hellenistic writings. Of course!), but now I think it might just be because he's in socal.
Second, although it's not listed here, my first order of business following the dawn of a new day in Deutschland will be to purchase this fine-looking supernatural thriller. I was going to make fun of the description for calling the unfortunate Frau "unschuldig" instead of outright innocent, but then I recalled that "innocent" and "unschuldig" are basically identical structurally. Stupid etymology! Onward:
- René Girard, Deceit, Desire and the Novel
- Jonathan Lear, Happiness, Death and the Remainder of Life
- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, assuming I find it. These three will probably be used for a paper, and I am also bringing a pair of essays:
- Jean-Pierre Dupuy, "Totalization and Misrecognition" and "Friedrich Hayek, or, Justice Drowned in Social Complexity"
- Soseki Natsume, "My Individualism" and "The Philosophical Foundations of Literature"
- Wilfrid Sellars, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind
- Tobias Smollett, Humphry Clinker
- Laurence Sterne, A Sentimental Journey
- Rose Macaulay, The Towers of Trebizond
- Stanley Cavell, Philosophical Passages
- Jürgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity
- Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death (which this time I'll finish, dagnabbit)
- Nelson Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking (again)
- Jonathan Lear, Open Minded
- Jean-Luc Nancy, The Birth to Presence (so Adam will stop asking me if I've read it after I once expressed interest in it)
- A Lonely Planet guide to Finland.
The Sterne and Smollett are there because I've decided my edition of Tom Jones is far too big to take with me and, as you can see, space will be at a premium. I reckon, though, I'll be able to finish these in about a month or so, and devote the rest of my reading time to translating Lichtenberg's Sudelbücher. After all, I don't intend to read all of the Goodman, and I've read the second and third entries already! And the Sellars is hella short. I bet I could read and fully understand it in a few days tops.
Comments
on 2006-06-20 13:02:18.0, Becks commented:
If the goal of this reading list was to instill a feeling of inadequacy in your readers, Bravo!
and, further, on 2006-06-20 13:54:57.0, ben wolfson commented:
No, it's to instil a feeling of inadequacy in my future self.
and, further, on 2006-06-21 9:15:48.0, Alex commented:
Yeah, the "History written by a loser" thing has always struck me as interesting.
Goodluck with the summer reading!
and, further, on 2006-06-25 15:48:36.0, Adam Kotsko commented:
Enjoy your trip. My jealousy is unbounded.