Coetzee's review of Phillip Roth's "Nemesis" ,in the latest New York Review of Books,is a tour de force in the craft of reviewing. But it is also puzzling. The brief opening paragraphs set the stage with an arresting account of the paradoxical mechanics of a disease ,central to the plot,that became lethal only after health authorities learned to manage it and continues with an equally arresting account of the disastrous social consequences of its spread .(He notes later in the review that Roth is especially good at description and perhaps wants to take up the challenge of matching him) He then gives an admirable account the plot so vivid and detailed that (with apologies) he reveals one of its secret twists. Finally,showing that the work belongs in the big leagues of literature he discusses it in the context of two very great works of literature very convincing comparison with Camus' "The Plague" and "Oedipus Rex. Breathtaking.
He ends ,however with the judgment that this is a minor novel in Roth's ouevre.
I want to look up one of his reviews of what he takes to be a major novel.
I wouldn't mind someone comparing one of my essays on Russell with one by Montaigne and then declaring it one of minor works
Friday, October 22, 2010
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Torah study
This morning we studied "Lech Lecha" (Genesis 12)Abraham's Call,or rather, the first few verses, because by the end of an hour and a half we had managed to comment on only three of them.
Speed readers would be horrified.But do they have much to brag about.
I've had two experiences with speed reading. About thirty years ago I was consumed by a conviction that I was undereducated .(I have not abandoned that conviction))The advertisements for speed reading courses promised that the student would learn the techniques for whizzing through books such as all the volumes of Gibbon's Decline and Fall in an evening and that their comprehension would be better than those who slogged through them in six months.Incredible,I thought. The next night I could gulp down Shakespeare's plays. Marvelous. I went to three classes and learned the technique of following my fingers as they maneuvered over the page. In the third class the instructor announced that on that night he would read a work he had never read before " Darwin's Origin of Species" and report on the content the next day Alas,his account was confused and inaccurate The only redeeming feature was the possibility that he might get a position as the Darwin expert in some Bible College, I was reminded of Woody Allen's account of his speed reading class. "We read War and Peace in fifteen minutes. It's about Russia."
The next encounter was with a very bright student who boasted he would read an encyclopedia over the weekend. I never saw him again. I have visions of him wandering in the desert raving wildly with springs and wires dangling from his head .
I now read slowly. This is very pleasurable except that I never get anything finished.It took me a whole summer to read Julian Young's biography of Nietzsche.I love detective stories (in film) but I never read them because it takes me so long My slow reading Torah study class consists mainly of enthusiastic converts. One was a WICA priestess. Their responses are enthusiastic,very imaginative and often as wild as those of orthodox rabbis.
Two passages interested me .God tells Abraham leave his father's house and go to a land that He ,the Lord, will show him. He doesn't say where,so it is into the unknown Rashi underplays the sense of a radical break with the past. He is too Rabbinic for such cataclysms. When the Lord promises him he will still be a somebody. Rashi comments implausibly that these are precautions of any traveler. WEll the Rabbis don't seem to like too much excitement. It was they who announced the end of Prophecy and the end of Miracles.
The second is a passage that notes without comment that the Canaanites already live there. Rashi must have worried about this because he offers a long explanation of their origins. Noah originally gave the land to the forefather of the Hebrews and over the decades the Canaanites sort of sneaked in.. No Comment.
Speed readers would be horrified.But do they have much to brag about.
I've had two experiences with speed reading. About thirty years ago I was consumed by a conviction that I was undereducated .(I have not abandoned that conviction))The advertisements for speed reading courses promised that the student would learn the techniques for whizzing through books such as all the volumes of Gibbon's Decline and Fall in an evening and that their comprehension would be better than those who slogged through them in six months.Incredible,I thought. The next night I could gulp down Shakespeare's plays. Marvelous. I went to three classes and learned the technique of following my fingers as they maneuvered over the page. In the third class the instructor announced that on that night he would read a work he had never read before " Darwin's Origin of Species" and report on the content the next day Alas,his account was confused and inaccurate The only redeeming feature was the possibility that he might get a position as the Darwin expert in some Bible College, I was reminded of Woody Allen's account of his speed reading class. "We read War and Peace in fifteen minutes. It's about Russia."
The next encounter was with a very bright student who boasted he would read an encyclopedia over the weekend. I never saw him again. I have visions of him wandering in the desert raving wildly with springs and wires dangling from his head .
I now read slowly. This is very pleasurable except that I never get anything finished.It took me a whole summer to read Julian Young's biography of Nietzsche.I love detective stories (in film) but I never read them because it takes me so long My slow reading Torah study class consists mainly of enthusiastic converts. One was a WICA priestess. Their responses are enthusiastic,very imaginative and often as wild as those of orthodox rabbis.
Two passages interested me .God tells Abraham leave his father's house and go to a land that He ,the Lord, will show him. He doesn't say where,so it is into the unknown Rashi underplays the sense of a radical break with the past. He is too Rabbinic for such cataclysms. When the Lord promises him he will still be a somebody. Rashi comments implausibly that these are precautions of any traveler. WEll the Rabbis don't seem to like too much excitement. It was they who announced the end of Prophecy and the end of Miracles.
The second is a passage that notes without comment that the Canaanites already live there. Rashi must have worried about this because he offers a long explanation of their origins. Noah originally gave the land to the forefather of the Hebrews and over the decades the Canaanites sort of sneaked in.. No Comment.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Israeli democracy
An important article in Tablet that spells out the obvious. I have a hard time explaining the difference between liberal and democratic in the phrase "liberal democratic" to my students.Bertrand Russell was a liberal democrat" ,a liberal by conviction and a democrat by necessity. His friend Gilbert Murray was a liberal but not a democrat, that is, he believed in "freedom of the press" but not in giving the vote to the uneducated.
In the United States democracy is a sacred term uttered with a reverential hush, but liberal is a dirty word to be used only as an epithet.
That liberal democracy can be an oxymoron is evident in the Middle East where the majorities are Islamist and refuse to endorse vital parts of liberalism, such as equality for women. This article suggests that Israel, because of its immigration policy is moving towards the same culture .The article ignores the strength of Israel's liberal institutions.Still new peoples,from the Middle East and now from Russia, that have had no experience of liberal institutions, have become a large majority and often despise the liberal institutions that Israel does support.
Ironically, the politician from Likud who built his party on an anti liberal majority Menahem Begin,always insisted he was a liberal,as did his mentor Jabotinsky.
In the United States democracy is a sacred term uttered with a reverential hush, but liberal is a dirty word to be used only as an epithet.
That liberal democracy can be an oxymoron is evident in the Middle East where the majorities are Islamist and refuse to endorse vital parts of liberalism, such as equality for women. This article suggests that Israel, because of its immigration policy is moving towards the same culture .The article ignores the strength of Israel's liberal institutions.Still new peoples,from the Middle East and now from Russia, that have had no experience of liberal institutions, have become a large majority and often despise the liberal institutions that Israel does support.
Ironically, the politician from Likud who built his party on an anti liberal majority Menahem Begin,always insisted he was a liberal,as did his mentor Jabotinsky.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Education
I began reading Martha Nussbaum's "Not For Profit" today and after some hesitation, will continue. My hesitation came when I saw that " Socratic Pedagogy" was one of its principal themes. Didn't we have enough of this in the sixties? Disillusionment with the Socratic Method was one of the sources of our current enthusiasm for rote learning. This, of course is a misinterpretation of Plato's Meno where Socrates ,questioning an uneducated slave ,shows that he has innate ideas of equality such as it is understood by geometry
But in those days the intellectual content of Socrates questioning was ignored and "Socratic "teaching" meant pulling the "real me" understood as a feeling. out of the the false socialization that has been imposed from authorities from the outside.
Though she sometimes writes this way this way this isn't Nussbaum's point.She is much closer to the real Socrates, whose method was focused on education as an ability to construct arguments. More to come
But in those days the intellectual content of Socrates questioning was ignored and "Socratic "teaching" meant pulling the "real me" understood as a feeling. out of the the false socialization that has been imposed from authorities from the outside.
Though she sometimes writes this way this way this isn't Nussbaum's point.She is much closer to the real Socrates, whose method was focused on education as an ability to construct arguments. More to come
Thursday, July 29, 2010
the "unique" and liberal democracy
A recent column by Stanley Fish may help us think about the public use of the holocaust-it's meaning in to day's political world, its uses and abuses etc.
We often insist(rightly I would say),that the holocaust is unique and not to be compared to other atrocities in history. My friend Fackenheim argued strenuously that it should not be compared to the atrocities of racism, and rejects the pairing of the Holocaust and Hiroshima. This tradition of interpreting uniqueness of the Holocaust is so fixed on the incomparable that it seems to have lost its historicity ,as a catastrophe that blighted the earth we stand on.
But many who argue this way, including sometimes Fackenheim himself contradict themselves are ready to compare Arafat with Hitler and call many of Israel's adversaries Nazis
Moreover the success of our Holocaust institutions , the public commemorations of the Holocaust lie in the fact that it is seen as a paradigm of the evils of racismlinked to the experience of other peoples'
The dillemma is "if we insist on its uniqueness too stridently we say that the holocaust took place on another planet.
Fish's article is about a case where a religious group sought priveleges in enforcing its beliefs. Fish replied tat all religious groups
We often insist(rightly I would say),that the holocaust is unique and not to be compared to other atrocities in history. My friend Fackenheim argued strenuously that it should not be compared to the atrocities of racism, and rejects the pairing of the Holocaust and Hiroshima. This tradition of interpreting uniqueness of the Holocaust is so fixed on the incomparable that it seems to have lost its historicity ,as a catastrophe that blighted the earth we stand on.
But many who argue this way, including sometimes Fackenheim himself contradict themselves are ready to compare Arafat with Hitler and call many of Israel's adversaries Nazis
Moreover the success of our Holocaust institutions , the public commemorations of the Holocaust lie in the fact that it is seen as a paradigm of the evils of racismlinked to the experience of other peoples'
The dillemma is "if we insist on its uniqueness too stridently we say that the holocaust took place on another planet.
Fish's article is about a case where a religious group sought priveleges in enforcing its beliefs. Fish replied tat all religious groups
Sunday, July 25, 2010
The Tempest and dreams
One and a half hours along the 403/401 ,about half an hour past Embro,(no y). We were racing a summer shower- to see the Tempest,The summer shower caught us and forced us to eat sandwiches in the car
First "Jacques Brel is Alive and Well in Paris"-enjoyable an opera in concert rather than the visceral drama we saw(set in a cafe I believe) in Toronto forty years a go. At Stratford the male performers were seized by the spirit -especialy Brent Carver's "The Port of Amsterdam.
At night the Tempest. I always need hearing aids in the Festival Theatre and can never find the perfect volume.
A great production-
I think of the Tempest as a sequence of visions of imaginary homelands as each of the actors conjures social orders, that fit his own needs. In this production it helped that the stage was bare, leaving it as a large Rorshach field allowing each one to treat it as his own canvas. (The comedy scene with Trinculo and Caliban was milked excessively I and momentarily interrupted my connection to the rest of the play
First dream-The storm- Everyone's life is in peril therefore the only social order that counts is that created by sailors trying to save the ship.The passengers try to assert themselves but the boatswain mocks Antonio asking hi to command the waves. Antonio maintains the fiction that he is in command and threatens to hand the boatswain even wnen they are going to drown. Here is something new. Nature trumps social order
Dream 2. Prospero finally tells Carmina of the circumstances that brought them to the island He was ousted by his brother. He wanted to devote his time to study, especially of magic and deep philosophy, handing over the reins of power to his brother, who ousts him letting him be cast on to this island.
In tne play this is presented as a great injustice but in my opinion Shakespeare sees political power in a more realistic light. I believe Shakespeare is a critic of the ancient tradition o philosopher king as well as the medieval tradition of
the saintly king. See Hanry v1. Shakespeare is Machiavellian in that a ruler should be cognizant of the need to exert power and look over his shoulder. In other words Prospero deserved what he got. When he is restored he doesn't make that mistake. He throws away his books of magic.
3.Gonzales dream of a completely egalitarian utopia without any political hierarchies...An early Kropotkin
Dream 4. Stephano and Antonio prepare to assassinate the others while they sleep. What would they do now that they are stuck on their island.
Dream 5. Caliban engineers a plot to assassinate Prospero with a drunk and a jester.
Prospero-"WE are such stuff that dreams are made of.ends drams
Plummer plays this with a kind of world weariness. he is barely in control of his subjects,including his daughter, End with asking the audience to liberate him from dreams
First "Jacques Brel is Alive and Well in Paris"-enjoyable an opera in concert rather than the visceral drama we saw(set in a cafe I believe) in Toronto forty years a go. At Stratford the male performers were seized by the spirit -especialy Brent Carver's "The Port of Amsterdam.
At night the Tempest. I always need hearing aids in the Festival Theatre and can never find the perfect volume.
A great production-
I think of the Tempest as a sequence of visions of imaginary homelands as each of the actors conjures social orders, that fit his own needs. In this production it helped that the stage was bare, leaving it as a large Rorshach field allowing each one to treat it as his own canvas. (The comedy scene with Trinculo and Caliban was milked excessively I and momentarily interrupted my connection to the rest of the play
First dream-The storm- Everyone's life is in peril therefore the only social order that counts is that created by sailors trying to save the ship.The passengers try to assert themselves but the boatswain mocks Antonio asking hi to command the waves. Antonio maintains the fiction that he is in command and threatens to hand the boatswain even wnen they are going to drown. Here is something new. Nature trumps social order
Dream 2. Prospero finally tells Carmina of the circumstances that brought them to the island He was ousted by his brother. He wanted to devote his time to study, especially of magic and deep philosophy, handing over the reins of power to his brother, who ousts him letting him be cast on to this island.
In tne play this is presented as a great injustice but in my opinion Shakespeare sees political power in a more realistic light. I believe Shakespeare is a critic of the ancient tradition o philosopher king as well as the medieval tradition of
the saintly king. See Hanry v1. Shakespeare is Machiavellian in that a ruler should be cognizant of the need to exert power and look over his shoulder. In other words Prospero deserved what he got. When he is restored he doesn't make that mistake. He throws away his books of magic.
3.Gonzales dream of a completely egalitarian utopia without any political hierarchies...An early Kropotkin
Dream 4. Stephano and Antonio prepare to assassinate the others while they sleep. What would they do now that they are stuck on their island.
Dream 5. Caliban engineers a plot to assassinate Prospero with a drunk and a jester.
Prospero-"WE are such stuff that dreams are made of.ends drams
Plummer plays this with a kind of world weariness. he is barely in control of his subjects,including his daughter, End with asking the audience to liberate him from dreams
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
powerpoint
I spent two days at a medical convention listening to power point presentations. There was a moment of relief when the computer of one of the participants didn't work and he had to speak extemporaneously ---a human sound as Camus once put it
Monday, April 19, 2010
Great Sentences
JIEGU, China — Long after the bulldozers have gone silent and the rescue workers have retired to their tents, the only sound in this earthquake-battered city is the plaintive barking of dogs that have lost their homes, and in many cases, their owners
Andrew Jacobs NY Times April 18
Andrew Jacobs NY Times April 18
Sunday, February 14, 2010
American disfunctions-communicate yea yea or nay nay
Today on GPS(Fareed Zakaria) Richard Haas ventured insisted that America should get serious about planning to bomb Iran with the proviso
a. The results would be horrible
b.we should continue to negotiate just in case...That is we should plan to plan in case we plan to do it.
He also made the intriguing comments that (a)the Arab nations are demanding action and (b)we should get out from behind Israel's skirts. This means that at present we let Israel make all the threats and in the best possible world if Israel bombs, we breathe a sigh of relief and offer to negotiate; the Arabs breathe a sigh of relief and then denounce Israel as imperialist lackeys. In the new situation we (the Americans) bomb leaving only the Arabs to breathe a sigh of relief and then denounce western imperialism as lackeys of Zionism.
Later Zakaria played clip from "Meet the Press" where Paulson and Greenspan(no relation) both declare the deficit to be America's most serious issue. But when they are asked if they would raise taxes on the rich -both looked stunned .They never thought of that.
He also added tne intriguing The great sage(I mean this) Paul Volcker,when asked what is the greatest danger that faces America today said, without batting an eyelash, "The inability of the American government to make any important decisions or take any important actions" A fitting summary.
a. The results would be horrible
b.we should continue to negotiate just in case...That is we should plan to plan in case we plan to do it.
He also made the intriguing comments that (a)the Arab nations are demanding action and (b)we should get out from behind Israel's skirts. This means that at present we let Israel make all the threats and in the best possible world if Israel bombs, we breathe a sigh of relief and offer to negotiate; the Arabs breathe a sigh of relief and then denounce Israel as imperialist lackeys. In the new situation we (the Americans) bomb leaving only the Arabs to breathe a sigh of relief and then denounce western imperialism as lackeys of Zionism.
Later Zakaria played clip from "Meet the Press" where Paulson and Greenspan(no relation) both declare the deficit to be America's most serious issue. But when they are asked if they would raise taxes on the rich -both looked stunned .They never thought of that.
He also added tne intriguing The great sage(I mean this) Paul Volcker,when asked what is the greatest danger that faces America today said, without batting an eyelash, "The inability of the American government to make any important decisions or take any important actions" A fitting summary.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
China. Is China the future that works?
Here is a loving post on China. The author is "bullish" but the next article demonstrates that the author has no illusions about price being paid to get there. Even Dickens' or Engel's portrait of the brutality of early industrial England has nothing to match this. How do we reconcile these two portraits of contemporary Chine
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Religion, Bible, Judaism
The Torah session continues to be productive in spite of the absence of Bible scholars. I wish I could get my classes to be as responsive to these texts as our motley crew at the Torah session.
Today we read and discussed Kings 1 Ch.2. David is on his deathbed, uttering his last words to his heir and successor Solomon. The first few lines are "religious", an admonition to keep the faith,the laws and statutes of Moses so that"no man of yours will be cut off from the throne of Israel" Then, without a pause,David switches into the warlord or Mafia Boss. "Bump off Joab, Be friendly to another guy who helped me out and sleep with one eye open when dealing with so and so etc.
The first part was rather priestly (according to Alter it was inserted by the Deuteronomist) But it illustrates a crucial point about the ancient Hebrew Kingship. Though the King is God's anointed the succession is not a done deal. After all God anointed Saul but then got rid of him(albeit for not being thorough in committing genocide) David's kingship and his succession are only legitimate if he and the people keep the covenant. This is not the Oriental Kingship which is inherently Divine-it is tentative(as subsequent developments, especially the breakup of the kingdom under Solomon) will show. The King is responsible to the elctorate, though this electorate consist o of one Divine being Since,according to the prophets the people violated these Divine precepts why are we(not me-I mean religious messianics) still talking about the restoration of the temple and David's line.
The Mafia warlord section will disturb those who believe that religion should be purely spiritual leaving politicians to do the dirty work. THis part of David's speech could easily be incorporated into a segment of The Godfather.Because Judaism is like that. It accepts the reality of dirty hands. I will discuss this issue in a later blog.
Today we read and discussed Kings 1 Ch.2. David is on his deathbed, uttering his last words to his heir and successor Solomon. The first few lines are "religious", an admonition to keep the faith,the laws and statutes of Moses so that"no man of yours will be cut off from the throne of Israel" Then, without a pause,David switches into the warlord or Mafia Boss. "Bump off Joab, Be friendly to another guy who helped me out and sleep with one eye open when dealing with so and so etc.
The first part was rather priestly (according to Alter it was inserted by the Deuteronomist) But it illustrates a crucial point about the ancient Hebrew Kingship. Though the King is God's anointed the succession is not a done deal. After all God anointed Saul but then got rid of him(albeit for not being thorough in committing genocide) David's kingship and his succession are only legitimate if he and the people keep the covenant. This is not the Oriental Kingship which is inherently Divine-it is tentative(as subsequent developments, especially the breakup of the kingdom under Solomon) will show. The King is responsible to the elctorate, though this electorate consist o of one Divine being Since,according to the prophets the people violated these Divine precepts why are we(not me-I mean religious messianics) still talking about the restoration of the temple and David's line.
The Mafia warlord section will disturb those who believe that religion should be purely spiritual leaving politicians to do the dirty work. THis part of David's speech could easily be incorporated into a segment of The Godfather.Because Judaism is like that. It accepts the reality of dirty hands. I will discuss this issue in a later blog.
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