What I've been reading ...
Let's take a moment for me to orient you to what's here
On the pages linked to this one there are dozens of book reviews.
I approach my book reviews from the perspective of my subjective experience of reading the book. There is a bit of a synopsis of the book there too, but you will figure out how I feel about it.
Here are the links:
But that's not all that's here on these pages. Immediately below is a review of my most recent reads, non-fiction and fiction. Below that is the title of the book I am currently reading.
And then we get to my faves. There is a memoir I really recommend (and a couple of other memoirs too). Then there are my top picks for each of the fiction and non-fiction categories. Finally, there's an interesting grouping of four books that have helped me come to terms with a perplexing social/ political issue.
My most recent non-fiction review
GRAY, John
Isaiah Berlin: An Interpretation of His Thought
There are also profound ideas in this book too, ideas which have changed my perspective on things.
As a contemporary British philosopher John Gray writes his interpretation of the contribution of mid-20th Century British philosopher, Isaiah Berlin. Berlin is noted for his analysis on the concept of liberty (or freedom). That analysis has to do with values, the pluralistic nature of them. Berlin identifies that the good that comes from one value cannot be measured against the good from a different value. There is no rational, common scale to do that measurement. Likewise we cannot sum the total amount of good from one set of values to compare to the total of another set of values … again, there’s just no scale to do so. Unfortunately, while good can come from exercising a particular value some harm can ensue from that act as well. Different values an individual holds can also come in conflict with each other. When they do there’s no rational way to make the decision which to act on. But we have to act. That act comes from our own will; such is the foundation of personal freedom as our actions cannot be rationally determined but are made as a personal choice. Furthermore, our sense of self (who we are as a person) is created out of those choices.
Did you get through that? (It was only 200 words).
What would ever motivate me to read a 200 page book expounding on that core idea?
So, here goes. John Gray was a professor of philosophy at Oxford University at the same time that our Prime Minister, Mark Carney, got his Master of Philosophy degree there. Isaiah Berlin was a prominently influential academic at Oxford a generation before. Carney is shepherding Canada in a vastly different approach to our place in the world. While pragmatic, it is also based on values. This approach must have come from a particular philosophical position, one he would have been immersed in at Oxford when he took that Master’s degree.
Gray writes in the style of academic rigour, situating Berlin in the context of the history of ideas within the philosophical literature. Much of the book is about the nuances and differences in Berlin’s approach with other philosophers. There is value in that, unfortunately just one that conflicts with ease of reading for those not privy to that very particular intellectual world. Gray does include many lengthy quotes from Berlin’s essays. Berlin’s writing style is more direct making his ideas more accessible than are Gray’s interpretation of them.
In other words. This book is a rather tough slog.
My most recent fiction review
WILDE, Oscar
The Picture of Dorian Gray
★★★★★
Most of us are familiar with the premise of this gothic novel. A young man retains his youthful physical appearance into adulthood while a painting of him in the attic displays his aging and the ugliness of his evil acts.
My reading of this novel occurs in the age of GLP1 drugs, botox, cosmetics and airbrushed images of young adult models. The allure of beautiful youthfulness retains its power in the world of advertising and creates the blight of adolescent despair over body image via TikTok videos. In that sense this novel from the Victorian age is still extremely relevant.
A desperate tragedy propels this novel. Our Dorian Gray suffers a great deal for his retained beauty, both in human relationships and his own emotional turmoil. His own evil capacity is unleashed while he retains his unusual gift of youthfulness. His personality becomes warped. The negative consequences of his shallow beauty consumes him.
While the Faustian nature of the plot is mentioned (selling one’s soul to the devil in exchange for getting what one wants at the moment), absent of a redemptive component this is not a spiritual book. And while matters of conscience and personality and friendships and behavioural impulses are present, neither is it a psychological treatise. I read this novel as a commentary on the society the author found himself within. A thumb to the eye, a middle finger raised. Within his moneyed class Dorian Gray, and perhaps the author as well, one was to keep up appearances. Ah, the ugliness concealed behind.
The book presents sarcastic reflection on superficial society. A secondary character, Lord Henry Wotton (a friend about a decade older than ever-youthful Dorian) spouts personal beliefs throughout the book that are the opposite to the common wisdom of the day (and our day too). One can only imagine the social outrage that this character and the story line would trigger back then. The dynamic of relationships within the novel strongly suggested to that Victorian age readership a homoerotic theme.
Outrage yes. Oscar Wilde was censured to the point of being imprisoned later in life for the perceived corruption within this work. Apparently the novel was dropped from the publisher’s catalogs for a time. But it is back, for us to read in our own age of obsession with superficial beauty of youthfulness and the keeping up of appearances.
What I'm currently reading
A highly recommended memoir.
I have also pictured below a couple of other memoirs which I really enjoyed.
