As we prepare once more to greet the two-faced Janus, we mortals also tend to look both backward and forward. Among the good things of this past year, I’m most thankful for my daughter’s move to Tennessee, my successful cancer surgery, and our driving trip to St. John’s Newfoundland. (Driving, mind you!) Coming up next year are a trip to Ireland (we decided not to drive there, though) and full retirement in December 2016. But of course having a Ten-Year Reading Plan prompt me to think back over the last twelve months of books and to anticipate the next twelve. As I’ve done for several years now, I offer my retrospective in the form of awards.
Hall of Fame: Charles Dickens
I used to think that if I didn’t place Dickens in his own honorific category, no one else could ever win the Best Reread. But I found this year that I’m perfectly happy announcing a four-way tie in that category.
Best New Read, Religion: Pascal, The Provincial Letters
Although his Pensées is one of my very favorite books, I had to put down Pascal’s Provincial Letters unfinished when its turn came up in the original ten-year plan that came with my Britannica Great Books set. And I find it very difficult to give up on a book; I’ve probably done it only three or four times in my whole life. But this year as I enjoyed the rest of these public letters, I couldn’t figure out how I lost interest the first time. Maybe it helped that my reading schedule has kept the Reformation on one of the closest back burners for several months. As Pascal exposes “Christian” theological theories that bribery is not sinful, that receiving forgiveness doesn’t require contrition, and that loving God is not necessary for salvation, you’d think he was writing satire except that he offered quotation after quotation from actually published books.
Best New Read, History: Foner, The Fiery Trial
Eric Foner understands that our country’s oldest and most persistent problem can’t be effectively treated in the sound bytes of postmodern politics. Through extensive quotations and careful analysis of historical context, the author does an amazing job setting out and balancing the delicate nuances of Lincoln’s feelings, thoughts, judgments, words, and actions concerning race relations and slavery. While the Great Emancipator didn’t have a twenty-first-century liberal view of race in America, it is a relief to find him consistently and emphatically denouncing American slavery as an unmitigated evil over all the decades of his public life. The high point of the book came when Foner distinguished feeling and belief and then made it clear that Lincoln valued the latter over the former, a point that I don’t normally encounter in any writing after, say, 1800.
Best Payoff for the Wait: Malory
In contrast to my experience with The Provincial Letters, when I put down Morte d’Arthur unfinished years ago, I knew I’d get back to it, and I knew I’d love it. I didn’t know it would take thirty years to get back to it, and I didn’t know I would love the last part as much as I do. The book starts out being really good, and then when Galahad and the story of the Grail shows up, it gets great. When the surprises in that story play out, though, it becomes something even greater than great. I didn’t see Malory’s tale of the knights of the Round Table on any Great Books list when I drew up my schedule ten years ago; I just planned it because I like King Arthur. Now I’m wondering how no one else recognizes this deeply moving classic.
Biggest Disappointment: Bede
I thought that by reading Bede, I’d read an inspiring history of the early Church in England. But in books II and III, Bede reveals an axe that I don’t care to see ground: the monk known as the Venerable wants to make it clear that the Celts, because they calculate the date of Easter differently from the English, are rude and barbaric. Hey, Bede, in the words of Paul, “One man esteems one day as better than another, while another man esteems all days alike. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another?”
Most Changed Author: Hume
I learned in college about Hume’s far-reaching skepticism. I’ve read about his skepticism. I’ve read Hume himself and thought he was a skeptic, although it seemed clear to me that he was uncomfortable with his skepticism. But after reading Hume this year, I came away convinced that he fully believed that we should trust our senses, believe in God, and pursue science. All he was skeptical of, it seems to me now, is reason as the basis for these assurances.
Most Challenging Nonfiction: Lewis, “Christianity and Culture”
When C. S. Lewis starts wondering what good it does anyone for him to teach culture, the dimmer mind in this lesser professor has to sit up and take notice.
Best Return Visit: (tie) Lord of the Rings, Tristram Shandy, Don Quixote, Orthodoxy
Why did I plan four of my very favorite books for the same year? Maybe, when I drew up my ten-year plan a decade ago, I put them all in year 9 thinking of each them (at four different times spread over several weeks, no doubt) that I should read new things and difficult things before I indulge myself – and then couldn’t bear to put any of them off all the way to year 10. If books were food and chocolate were completely nourishing, these four books would be chocolate to me.
Best Offroading: A History of the World in 6 Glasses
I learned something new and fascinating in almost every paragraph. I didn’t know that beer had so much to do with the beginnings of writing. I didn’t know that Enlightenment philosophers considered coffee vital to their discussions and thinking. I didn’t know that Coca-Cola is so closely associated with the U.S. that Pepsi often finds ready foreign markets in countries that don’t like us.
Tomorrow I begin the last year of my ten-year reading plan. It’s the weirdest, most extensive self-educating plan I’ve ever heard of, and I’ve reached the 90% mark right on schedule. Oh, wait. I remember now reading that Thomas Edison vowed as a boy to read every book in his library. Oh! And there’s the classic Twilight Zone episode where the avid reader finds himself the only survivor of the holocaust. I watched that episode recently, and I couldn’t believe how much I resembled Burgess Meredith’s character. Not only does he love Dickens; he lays out stacks of books on the steps of the library and arranges them according to the year he plans to read them. If I want to finish my plan next December, I guess I’d better not break my glasses!
Showing posts with label Tom Standage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tom Standage. Show all posts
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
I’m Thirsty!
Tom Standage’s A History of the World in 6 Glasses has proved to be one of the best off-list non-fiction books I’ve read during my ten-year plan. Actually, I didn’t read it; I listened to a digital recording checked out from the library (the wonders of technology!) on the way to and from work. And I was glued to every word. Last month I posted some comments about the sections on beer and wine. And the parts about spirits, coffee, tea, and cola were no less fascinating.
According to Standage, spirits originated as a way to transport alcohol long distances (especially across the ocean) more efficiently. Apparently no one much liked the taste of distilled liquor at first, so it was assumed that it would be diluted when it got to its destination. Lemon juice and sugar were also added to mask the taste, and thus the cocktail was born. Spirits were so popular in colonial New England, and sugar was so important to their consumption, the Sugar Act did more to incite the American Revolution than the tea tax or the Stamp Act. At least that’s Standage’s argument. True or not, it made me smile when he pointed out the irony that the first internal rebellion of the new nation came about because of a tax on whiskey.
Coffee was the drink of the Enlightenment, a stimulant that fostered clear thinking and discussion about political, financial, and philosophical issues. Voltaire did much of his work in a coffee house in Paris. (I’ve sat at his desk.) The French Revolution was declared in a coffee house, and both Lloyd’s and the London Stock Exchange started in coffee houses. People still discuss business over coffee and in coffee shops.
Since Standage’s “World” mostly means “the West,” he rushes through the history of tea in China as a mere prelude to the story he really wants to tell: tea’s role in the building of the British Empire. It certainly played a central part in one of the darkest chapters of that history, in which the Limeys (so called because they put lime juice in their spirits) traded opium to the Chinese for more tea.
If tea represents all the best and worst of the British, the world has taken Coca-Cola as the symbol of the United States and has loved it or hated it in correlation to its feeling about America. Some of the most interesting parts of the story dealt with Pepsi’s role in geopolitics. No less a product of the US than its rival, Pepsi has made a habit of stepping into global markets left Coke-free by political opposition to the States: Iron Curtain countries in the 1960s and 70s, and Arab countries in the last twenty years.
Well, the book was so interesting, I’ve just rehashed some of its most fascinating points without adding much interest of my own. I hope I’ve said enough to entice someone to read the book and not so much that you think you don’t need to read it. I know I’ve said enough to make me thirsty. But what do I drink first?
According to Standage, spirits originated as a way to transport alcohol long distances (especially across the ocean) more efficiently. Apparently no one much liked the taste of distilled liquor at first, so it was assumed that it would be diluted when it got to its destination. Lemon juice and sugar were also added to mask the taste, and thus the cocktail was born. Spirits were so popular in colonial New England, and sugar was so important to their consumption, the Sugar Act did more to incite the American Revolution than the tea tax or the Stamp Act. At least that’s Standage’s argument. True or not, it made me smile when he pointed out the irony that the first internal rebellion of the new nation came about because of a tax on whiskey.
Coffee was the drink of the Enlightenment, a stimulant that fostered clear thinking and discussion about political, financial, and philosophical issues. Voltaire did much of his work in a coffee house in Paris. (I’ve sat at his desk.) The French Revolution was declared in a coffee house, and both Lloyd’s and the London Stock Exchange started in coffee houses. People still discuss business over coffee and in coffee shops.
Since Standage’s “World” mostly means “the West,” he rushes through the history of tea in China as a mere prelude to the story he really wants to tell: tea’s role in the building of the British Empire. It certainly played a central part in one of the darkest chapters of that history, in which the Limeys (so called because they put lime juice in their spirits) traded opium to the Chinese for more tea.
If tea represents all the best and worst of the British, the world has taken Coca-Cola as the symbol of the United States and has loved it or hated it in correlation to its feeling about America. Some of the most interesting parts of the story dealt with Pepsi’s role in geopolitics. No less a product of the US than its rival, Pepsi has made a habit of stepping into global markets left Coke-free by political opposition to the States: Iron Curtain countries in the 1960s and 70s, and Arab countries in the last twenty years.
Well, the book was so interesting, I’ve just rehashed some of its most fascinating points without adding much interest of my own. I hope I’ve said enough to entice someone to read the book and not so much that you think you don’t need to read it. I know I’ve said enough to make me thirsty. But what do I drink first?
Sunday, March 15, 2015
A History of the West in Six Pieces of Music
On the way to and from work, I’ve been listening to A History of the World in Six Glasses. Author Tom Standage runs through this history (primarily a history of the West) by looking at beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola. And it’s remarkable how well this gimmick works. I had no idea beer played such a vital role in the beginning of civilization (i.e., humans living in cities): the first writing samples often indicate amounts of beer stored in temples or warehouses and paid to workers, and the world’s first written recipe tells how to make beer. Beer was so much a part of city life, anyone who didn’t drink beer was considered a rude bumpkin. How things have changed!
Similarly, wine contributes to and is emblematic of the Greeks’ ideas of equality and free discourse. The symposium, essentially a Greek dinner party for intellectuals, was named from roots meaning “drinking together.” As it happens, I even blogged just a few weeks ago about Plato’s proposed use of wine drinking in his Laws. After a follow-up on the importance of wine to the Romans and Christians, the “history of the world” then jumps to the Atlantic slave trade of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for a look at spirits. But something like continuity returns with the section on coffee: the clarity (or apparent clarity) that comes from drinking this new concoction from Arabia perfectly suited the Enlightenment discussions of eighteenth-century France.
I’ve been thinking about what a parallel book based on music would look like. I first thought of A History of the World in Six Pieces. But then most historical pieces don’t have the long-term social prevalence that Standage’s six drinks do. Gregorian chant and Messiah come to mind as the notable exceptions that prove the rule. So how about A History of the World in Six Genres? I thought about sacred song, the motet, the mass, the opera, the symphony, and the recorded popular song. But if the first idea proved too narrow, this one is way too wide: each of those genres could fill (and has filled many times over) its own large volume of history.
But what about six pieces that represent six genres? I may be on to something. The thread of history would have to weave backwards and forwards rather than being stretched out in one linear path. But the book might look something like this. It could start with Bach’s choral hymn “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden” (“O Sacred Head Now Wounded”). As a representative of sacred song, the section could discuss the Greeks’ religion through the Seikilos hymn, Charlemagne though the unification of Gregorian chant practice, and the Reformation. Machaut’s “Ma fin est mon commencement,” in representing the medieval chanson, could support stories about Frankish barbarians and the rise of nation states and modern languages in the Middle Ages. Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro could launch a brief history of opera that would in turn outline the Florentine Renaissance, the English Civil War, absolute monarchies of the seventeenth century, and (through Figaro himself) the downfall of those same absolute monarchs.
Would it feel like cheating to represent the symphony by Dvořák’s New World Symphony? The genre tells the story of the rise of the middle class and Enlightenment thinking, and the Czech’s peculiar work (my least favorite of his, actually) could provide an excuse for covering both the discovery of America and the revolutions and nationalistic movements in nineteenth century Europe. And then how could one responsibly discuss “All You Need Is Love” without covering the Industrial Revolution, two World Wars, and postmodernism?
It’s a book I will never write. But after putting this post together, I think it’s a really good book that I will never write.
Similarly, wine contributes to and is emblematic of the Greeks’ ideas of equality and free discourse. The symposium, essentially a Greek dinner party for intellectuals, was named from roots meaning “drinking together.” As it happens, I even blogged just a few weeks ago about Plato’s proposed use of wine drinking in his Laws. After a follow-up on the importance of wine to the Romans and Christians, the “history of the world” then jumps to the Atlantic slave trade of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for a look at spirits. But something like continuity returns with the section on coffee: the clarity (or apparent clarity) that comes from drinking this new concoction from Arabia perfectly suited the Enlightenment discussions of eighteenth-century France.
I’ve been thinking about what a parallel book based on music would look like. I first thought of A History of the World in Six Pieces. But then most historical pieces don’t have the long-term social prevalence that Standage’s six drinks do. Gregorian chant and Messiah come to mind as the notable exceptions that prove the rule. So how about A History of the World in Six Genres? I thought about sacred song, the motet, the mass, the opera, the symphony, and the recorded popular song. But if the first idea proved too narrow, this one is way too wide: each of those genres could fill (and has filled many times over) its own large volume of history.
But what about six pieces that represent six genres? I may be on to something. The thread of history would have to weave backwards and forwards rather than being stretched out in one linear path. But the book might look something like this. It could start with Bach’s choral hymn “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden” (“O Sacred Head Now Wounded”). As a representative of sacred song, the section could discuss the Greeks’ religion through the Seikilos hymn, Charlemagne though the unification of Gregorian chant practice, and the Reformation. Machaut’s “Ma fin est mon commencement,” in representing the medieval chanson, could support stories about Frankish barbarians and the rise of nation states and modern languages in the Middle Ages. Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro could launch a brief history of opera that would in turn outline the Florentine Renaissance, the English Civil War, absolute monarchies of the seventeenth century, and (through Figaro himself) the downfall of those same absolute monarchs.
Would it feel like cheating to represent the symphony by Dvořák’s New World Symphony? The genre tells the story of the rise of the middle class and Enlightenment thinking, and the Czech’s peculiar work (my least favorite of his, actually) could provide an excuse for covering both the discovery of America and the revolutions and nationalistic movements in nineteenth century Europe. And then how could one responsibly discuss “All You Need Is Love” without covering the Industrial Revolution, two World Wars, and postmodernism?
It’s a book I will never write. But after putting this post together, I think it’s a really good book that I will never write.
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