"Thus, After Everything Has Been Most Carefully Weighed, It Must Finally Be Established That This Pronouncement 'I Am, I Exist' Is Necessarily True Every Time I Utter It Or Conceive It In My Mind"

Not gonna lie, I have a hard time wrapping my mind around philosophical arguments. And I know that there is some background information that is needed to understand the tenets of structuring a philosophical proof, which I know I learned at some point in time. But it has been a while since my intro to philosophy class, so I've certainly forgotten a lot of it. But I was still able to understand Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy fairly well and still could turn a critical eye to his arguments.

There are 6 different meditations presented: 1) Concerning those things that can be called into doubt; 2) Concerning the nature of the human mind: that it is better known than the body; 3) Concerning God, that he exists; 4) Concerning the true and the false; 5) Concerning the essence of material things, and again concerning God, that he exists; and 6) Concerning the existence of material things, and the real distinction between mind and body. Descartes initially starts by ignoring everything that he isn't absolutely certain about and then one argument at a time, demonstrating what is known for sure.

While I generally was on board with how he went about demonstrating "certainties," there occasionally seemed to be some assumptions that led to certainties that seemed a bit incongruous to me, particularly around his arguments for the existence of God. One of his key assumptions was that, because he has an inherent thought of what God is, God must exist. But he limits his views on having an inherent thought of what God is to only himself. It doesn't mean that every person or every culture inherently has an idea of a "God." And he never mentions the fact that someone else could have placed the "inherent" thought of God into his mind, which seems kind of like a given, because everyone (especially in Descartes' time) is taught about God. So it just seemed like one of the most important assumptions of his argument was not a very sound idea. I had multiple other similar feelings about his other arguments throughout the meditations, but I won't bore you with my philosophical analysis.

One main thing that was very interesting to me about reading philosophical texts from the 1600s was how much the advancement of science and understanding of the brain has impacted these arguments. There is so much more we know now about the universe, perception, the senses, aberrations of the senses, mental illness, and how changes on a cellular/neuronal level make us the unique individuals we are with the minds we have, it would be interesting to see what these arguments would be with all of this taken into account. In some regards, I think they would largely be the same, because there is still a very real concept of "the mind" that cannot be pinpointed (yet?) by science by just identifying which neuronal connections mean what.

But in other regards, it seems like there is much more understanding around our brains, creation of the universe, and other relevant scientific findings that make philosophical arguments of the existence of God more difficult to prove, particularly when it comes down to understanding what is "real" based on our own senses and that which is external to us. What we perceive is much more fickle and less certain than we tend to think it is. Any number of aberrations from color blindness, to synesthesia, to hallucinations and psychosis, to phantom limbs, to differing types of amnesia wreak havoc on our on individual perceptions of the world around us and of our own bodies on minds. And very often, we have no reason to doubt these things because they are real to us. And if you can dismiss these things as just aberrations, then what really is the "correct" way of perceiving things? Just interesting to think about...

So anywho, Meditations was an interesting break to use my noggin in a very different way than I normally do when reading. I have a few other philosophy texts in the Best Literary Works list, and I'm not particularly dreading them as much as before reading this. And if I was smart, I would go read Aristotle now, because many of Descartes' arguments sought to disprove Aristotle's theories. But meh. I would probably get frustrated and it would then take me another year to get through it. So I'll shift to reading something a little more in my wheelhouse, Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner. I'm actually quite looking forward to something that's a more digestible type of fiction, since I haven't had that for about a year or so (Ulysses being super challenging, H is for Hawk being nonfiction, and Meditations being philosophy). And having the next week off makes me look forward to it even more.

Happy Holidays!

228 more to go.

"The Hawk Was A Fire That Burned My Hurts Away. There Could Be No Regret Or Mourning In Her. No Past Or Future. She Lived In The Present Only, And That Was My Refuge"

There might be a bit of amused coincidence in finishing a book about a bird of prey the day after we as Americans celebrate a day of thankfulness and gratitude by eating turkey. Here is where I would make a smart comment about the fact that if Ben Franklin had chosen the turkey as the American symbol, maybe we would be eating bald eagle on Thanksgiving instead; however, that little ditty is actually a myth (although Franklin did seem to be opposed to it being an eagle).

Any-who, I did finish H is for Hawk. And as I previously mentioned, I really had no idea what the book was about when I impulsively put it into my Amazon shopping cart. And I'm generally not a fan of non-fiction autobiography-type books and I didn't really know that's what I had signed up for. And after recently reading When Breath Becomes Air, I think I'm good with books about facing the reality of death and facing our own mortality.

The book is a self-recounting of Helen Macdonald's time after the death of her father spent training a goshawk. Prior to reading this book, I knew absolutely zero about falconry and training hawks/birds of prey. And honestly, that was definitely what I found most interesting about the book. The idea of being able to train a completely wild, non-domesticated breed of animal is quite fascinating. And the history behind how this was an aristocratic activity (and how hunting in general in England was reserved for the elite and royalty due to owning of the expanses of land where the hunts were conducted) was also so interesting to me. Macdonald details all of the steps of this process in lovely detail, so even though I had no concept of what would be involved, equipment names, etc, her explanations and descriptions provided a very comprehensive understanding of everything involved. It's the science nerd in me. What can I say?

And while I can appreciate her parallels between training the hawk and her grief process following her father's sudden death (and certainly there were many parts of the book that felt like I was reading the cathartic journaling of someone dealing with the death of a loved one), there were times when it felt a bit forced. I have no doubt that Macdonald's choice to obtain and train a hawk at that time in her life were very much entwined with her desire to self-isolate and to retreat into the wildness of a goshawk, but the abundance of "training hawk as dealing with grief" parallels in every chapter just seemed like a little much to me after a while.

In parallel with her own story of training her goshawk, Macdonald tells of many of the writings that inspired her interest in hawking, in particular the book The Goshawk by T.H. White, who was the author of The Sword in the Stone. And the portrait of White was quite fascinating. I knew absolutely nothing about him, and realized that I actually don't really know anything about The Sword in the Stone either. I'm really only familiar with the Disney-fied version and even then, I've only seen bits and pieces. But to read of White's life, struggle to connect with other people, and closeted sexuality in relation to his own training of a goshawk I think brought a strength to Macdonald's own story. I had hoped for a more compelling end to the book related to the parallels of Macdonald's time spent training her hawk and White's, but not to be.

I did enjoy the book and again, the details of training a hawk were fascinating. But not sure if I would have read it had I known more about the book ahead of time. So yeah. Moving on.

Next up, I'm taking a strange sojourn to hit one of the pieces listed under the "Philosophy" section of my List of Best Literary Works: Meditations by Rene Descartes. It is fairly short in length so I hope to make fast work of it over the holiday weekend, however, I fully expect lots of mental gymnastics along the way. I took an intro to philosophy class as a freshman undergraduate at the University of Michigan, and it was one of those classes that really blew open my entire way of thinking about the world, and now, nearly 20 years later, I can point to as a moment when my way of looking at the world changed. So I'm expecting to see a revisit of many of the topics that were discussed in that class, which I'm looking forward to.

Happy thanksgiving!

"Some Say That We Shall Never Know And That To The Gods We Are Like The Flies That The Boys Kill On A Summer Day, And Some Say, On The Contrary, That The Very Sparrows Do Not Lose A Feather That Has Not Been Brushed Away By The Finger Of God"

The Bridge of San Luis Rey is based around a very simple concept (with a similar quote noted in the book): do we live and die by accident, or do we live and die by plan? In the Afterword of the book, there are excerpts of letters and lectures by Thornton Wilder and he indicates his belief that there are really only a few really great subjects to write about. Which is a very interesting concept...are there really only a handful of basic moral dilemmas people encounter and all books are written around these themes, with different backdrops, characters, and dynamics between the characters?

So Thornton Wilder takes this simple concept, and sets it in Peru where a monk happens to see a osier bridge over a ravine break and 5 people plummet to their deaths. He feels that this circumstance provides him with the perfect opportunity to conduct a "scientific" study of every minutiae of these individuals' lives and determine that there was a reason that God chose them to die. So, yes, he seems to already have his conclusion determined before he begins his examination that these individuals were somehow morally reprehensible and that they deserved what happened to them (it's amusing to me that they referred to it as a "scientific" study when he already knew what he wanted the results to be).

The majority of the rest of the book is then a sketch of each of the 5 characters: the Marquesa de Montemayor, a self-isolated woman who is estranged from her daughter but obsessively craves her daughters love and approval; the Marquesa's young maid/assistant Pepita; Esteban, an identical twin who was emotionally distraught over the recent death of his twin brother; Uncle Pio, an older enigmatic traveler who had devoted most of his life to the instruction, support, and occasional emotional manipulation of Peru's most famous actress; and Jaime, the son of the famous actress.

I cannot begin to say how gorgeously written this book is. I was reading it on an airplane next to my bf, and a few times I had to lean over to him to show him a particular sentence and how exquisite the wording and descriptions were. Again, it was such a simple concept, but the portraits of the characters were just so rich and interesting. And it was written from the perspective of someone who was reviewing their lives, so it was a bit removed but the narrator still knew things about the characters' inner minds that wouldn't likely have been something that could have been researched after their deaths. And in the end, did the monk achieve the foregone conclusion that he set out to confirm? Well, I'll let you find that out for yourselves!

I did love this book very much and I'm looking forward to reading Our Town, also by Thornton Wilder (I've never seen the play or movie). In the meantime, I'm taking a break from the lists to read H is for Hawk, by Helen Macdonald, an impulse Amazon purchase. I didn't really have much of an idea what the book was about, but so far, it's interesting. I don't usually buy nonfiction books, and honestly didn't realize it was until I started reading. It won lots of awards and was on lots of "Best Of" lists, so hopefully it will be good!

229 books to go! Happy 5th of November!

"Thought Is The Thought Of Thought. Tranquil Brightness. The Soul Is In A Manner All That Is: The Soul Is The Form Of Forms. Tranquility Sudden, Vast, Candescent: Form of Forms"

Only 1 post all year?? I know, it's pretty ridiculously unacceptable. But you wanna know why? It's Ulysses. It has been the bane of my existence this year. For as much as I read that it was a difficult book to get through, I certainly underestimated it. I like to think that I can understand challenging material, but this one was just a struggle every step of the way. And then I wouldn't pick it up for a couple weeks, and find myself struggling even more to figure out where I was and get back into the mode of reading James Joyce's style of writing.

But I completely understand why this novel is often considered one of the greatest of all time (or certainly of the 20th century). It is beyond anything that I've ever read and it blows me away that anyone has the capacity to lay out a story in the way that he does. There are so many things that are told without directly telling and alluded to in such an vague manner, you really have to reread and read between the lines to understand what's going on. Which I think was where I struggled the most. For certain novels, I'll often pull up Cliff Notes or reader's guides, just to make sure that I'm on the right track with my comprehension of what I'm reading, and there is no way I could have made it through this one without that.

So in a nutshell, Ulysses is a day in the life of Leopold Bloom on June 16, 1904 in Dublin, Ireland. He buys soap for his wife, he reads a letter from a woman he's corresponding with, he goes to a funeral, he visits a pub, he masturbates while watching a woman by the beach, he accompanies and acquaintance, Stephen Dedalus, to a brothel, and he ends up taking Stephen back to his own home, returning to his wife. All the while, he is aware of the fact that his wife has cheated on him that day with a younger man. There is, of course, WAY more in between there, but just the highlights. And the entire story is told paralleling Homer's Odyssey (which is actually also on my list...if I was smart, I would read it now, but I don't know if I could mentally handle it...I would likely never finish and stop reading all together).

And Bloom is a fascinating character. I feel as though I understand him very well but would have a hard time explaining him. He's a bit of a know-it-all, but in a really off-putting way, and he doesn't always seem to be right. He seems to want to be a moral voice amongst his other acquaintances, but other actions and thoughts of his reveal him to certainly not be a righteous individual. A lot is written regarding his more base desires and....errr...functions: his appetites for strange meats, him going number 2 in an outhouse, his sexual aberrational fantasies. While trying to portray himself as a learned man, he mostly seems to be a bit of a creepy, dirty old man.

Without question, my favorite part of the book was the last chapter, written from Bloom's wife, Molly's, point of view. In the intro sections of the version of Ulysses that I have, there is detail regarding the court case around Ulysses being banned for vulgarity, and it alluded to certain sections being offensive and overtly vulgar. And while I was reading the book, I would get to a certain section and think "maybe this is the 'vulgar' part they were referring to, but it really isn't all that bad". And thhheeeennnnn I got to the last chapter. And man oh man, Molly was the one spouting off all the dirty stuff. And whereas the rest of the book is written in more vague, round-about ways of explaining more offensive topics, Molly's text is refreshingly straightforward, and straight up naughty. Like, name a dirty topic, and she went there. And I didn't necessarily like the chapter because it was dirty. I liked it because it was refreshing that it came from the female character of the novel. For all that was written from the point of view of the men, and women certainly aren't given much regard, I just loved that she was all out there and without question, the most bluntly honest character.

So I know that there have been theses written, devoted to all of the particulars of Ulysses. And there are infinite things that I could discuss as far as character dynamics, the Irish political and religious backdrop, and the dynamics of Joyce's writing, but I just can't do it. If you can't tell, I really just didn't care for Ulysses. I can appreciate it for its breadth and exquisite writing and story-telling, but I just had such a hard time with it, I just didn't enjoy it as much as I probably could have. I believe I have 2 other James Joyce books on my lists, but it's going to be a minute before I venture back into his realm.

So up next, I'm hoping to be a quick and engaging read it The Bridge of San Luis Rey. Just reading the short background section, I'm already hooked. And I've been to Peru, so that makes me want to dig in even more. Cos I really need a book that's going to get me excited about reading again. Here's my fingers crossed!

230 to go.

"It Is Clear That The Books Owned The Shop Rather Than The Other Way About. Everywhere They Had Run Wild And Taken Possession Of Their Habitat, Breeding And Multiplying, And Clearly Lacking Any Strong Hand To Keep Them Down"

A little while back, my bf had a photo shoot done at a somewhat legendary bookstore here in Detroit, John K. King Rare and Used Books. And he and our photog friend Brett couldn't believe that I had never been there. And here's the thing...I'm not super crazy about used bookstores, because I tend to just get frustrated with the volume of stuff and organization. But this one was an entirely different story all together.

The main part of the bookstore open to the public is 4 stories and very organized...I mean, they have maps for you when you walk in! And everything is super well-labeled. So I didn't get my less-than-5-minutes-in frustration. AND, we were fortunate enough to be able to go into the separate annex for the rare books, with John King himself and a couple other employees. And holy moly. It is a bibliophile's paradise! Books that are hundreds of years old. Classics signed by the authors. Just too much to take in! I made sure to tell the bf that he can feel free to shop there for my birthday if he was every stumped for a gift idea.

All told, I managed to leave the store only purchasing one book (Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell). The woman who rang me up informed me that his writing has an "interesting" approach to gender issues, which I am curious to find out when I get around to reading it. Which, by the way Ulysses is going, might be never.

So about that. I find that I have to sit down and read large sections of Ulysses at a time. That once I get into the groove of the style of writing, I can progress better. But if I only read 10 to 20 pages at a time and then try to come back and 1) figure out what's going on, or 2) try to readjust to the writing style, I may as well start at the beginning of the chapter. So I'm sincerely hoping to get in a better groove with this book. It's absolutely no joke what they say about this being the most commonly unfinished book. Because there have been many times when I've looked longingly at the stack on my bookcase of books to read and then looked over at Ulysses with the stink eye. But I'll fight through it. I know I'm not gaining nearly as much from the book as if I were reading it super slowly and looking up every detail, or even better, reading it in school (in my defense, every time I finish a chapter, I read 2 different online summaries/analyses of the chapter to make sure that I'm on the same page - no pun intended). But I'm ok with that. What I'm not ok with is the fact that I have 2 more James Joyce books on my lists. Oy.

Well, all I can do is keep moving through Ulysses and see how the rest of it goes! I'm a little over halfway. My goal is to finish it before the end of April when I go to Vegas - I'd like to pack something a little smaller and less intense for airplane reading.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with this comic from the Awkward Yeti which sums up me, every single time I'm in a bookstore (see evidence above...although more self-control was exhibited). And hopefully I'll be able to post a link to some of the photos from the photo shoot at John King...Brett does spectacular work!


Happy Sunday!