Previous - 112. I immediately regret this...
Some updates
Since I bought that special tool to tighten the chair screws at Peet's, they've tightened them all properly. So I only got to use the tool once. Either this is the usual thing that happens with me where I call about something or see a doctor right before the problem goes away on it's own or the package shows up in the mail; or my offering to tighten up their chair screws made them finally address this on their own. I'd like to think that it's the latter, but I doubt it.On the other hand, recall the non-functioning cable car override switch? It's been weeks since I first noticed it wasn't functioning and tried to report it yet it still isn't working. I've finally noticed that this malfunction gives me more time to walk across Bush street -- the harder direction to cross at that intersection -- so I'm just going keep quiet and let the car traffic remain delayed.
New books
Having finished Absalom, Absalom!, I ventured yet again to Green Apple Books to sell a bunch of books and to buy something new to read. Just as happened last time, I had a long list of books to find and couldn’t find most of them. They didn’t have A Tale of Genji, I’m sad to say, and their shelving system is so chaotic and poorly signed that if they had any of the non-fiction titles on my list I couldn’t locate them. (Granted, I would have been surprised if they had had The Essence of Christianity by Ludwig Feuerbach.)
What I did find was Candide by Voltaire and Vertigo by W.G. Sebald. I’ve started Candide and already found my next role in life. But is there still time for me to become an instructor in metaphysico-theologico-cosmoloonigology?
And now Vertigo. Oh, my! The beginning is also about war in Europe -- though a century later -- and the protagonist (Beyle) already suffers, along with Pangloss, from our old friend syphilis. And Beyle starts his story as a youth in Napoleon’s army as it crosses the Great St. Bernard Pass for the first campaign in Italy. While nominally a dragoon, he doesn’t seem to take much part in the war and only visits Marengo fifteen months after the battle. His merely dropping a few names, like Kellermann and Marmont take me back to an almost unimaginable past -- since I’ve almost exclusively read about the 1815 campaign for so long. (Oh, the names... Berthier, Lannes, Desaix, Masséna, Murat, Victor. It's like recalling the 1st or 2nd 49er Superbowl teams back in the '80s. The first glimpse of people destined to become legends.) Was Napoleon crushed by the failure of his old Marshals to rally to him after he landed in France after Elba? Fifteen years of war! You could write an Iliad about Napoleon’s endless wars -- with the Marshals grousing in their tents; refusing, like Achilles, to put on their armor and fight. Only wondering if they would ever be able to retire home to rest in peace.
Anyway, Destiny or which ever Hellenic Deity is the God of Books, mandates that I blog these two titles next, and together, apparently.
The basics
Candide by Voltaire (originally by "Doctor Ralph")The Norton Critical Edition, 2nd Edition, 1991
(Finally thought to look up the entire library of Norton Critical Editions... that could keep me busy for a lifetime or two.)
Vertigo by W.G. Sebald
A New Directions Book, 2nd Edition, 1990
Candigo (the shipper mashup of Candide + Vertigo)
It occurs to me that our modern optimistic liberals share a good deal with Pangloss. While many wish for a world where people are not discriminated against on the basis of their various statuses, the only thing people seem to really agree on is that they themselves would rather not be discriminated for their own statuses. While many wish for a world where young women can dress as they please and drink as they please without having to worry about being molested by Bulgars, the modern Pangloss thinks we actually live in that world, all evidence to the contrary.Schwalbe
Last night I went to a Will Schwalbe book signing on West Portal (a posh neighborhood commercial street) with a couple people from my book club. Our Meaning Of Life Book Club was inspired by his The End of Your Life Book Club, which was also our first title. His current title is Books For Living in which he talks about books that he feels he read at just the right time and that taught him important lessons.He's an interesting writer and possibly a better public speaker. He brought up a number of points I wanted to go into more detail about, but, unfortunately, the signing was very well attended, so I couldn't really get into it with him.
I haven't yet read this book, so all I have to go on is what he said last night. It seems to me that to do this right, you would have to first lay out the proper circumstances under which you should read the titles he's selected. Some of these are easy: After the death of someone very close to you; or When you realize that the path you are on in life isn't that satisfying. But others are more challenging. It would be interesting to describe the perfect circumstances for ones reading the books you yourself have found most important. Sometimes this would include having already read prerequisite books. Sometimes you might have to be at the right age or level of maturity.
(And of course there is the reverse of this idea: Books you should not read at certain times -- either because of what you're dealing with or because of what you haven't yet experienced or learned. I'm now imagining "trigger warnings" on books. For Metamorphosis, "Avoid this title when your residence is experiencing an insect infestation.")
Someone in the audience brought up the lack of books in translation on his list, which he loved since in his other life he is a publisher of books in translation -- mostly from the Far East.
He also made what may be the most frightening comment I've ever heard, I brought up my question about the possible existence of books that are better in translation than in the original, and he said he had heard from German speakers that some English translations of German philosophy are actually better because the translator had to struggle to make sense of, and then translate, ideas that were even more puzzling in the original German. I have always assumed Kant and Heidegger and the rest must be at least a little more understandable in German. I even tried to tackle Kant in German back in the late '70s... no wonder I didn't have any luck (as if that was the real problem).
It turns out he has dreams of a type I also have, but had never heard mentioned before. The kind of dream where you suddenly discover your house has rooms (or sometimes just storage areas) that you had previously been unaware of. I love these dreams. A variation on the genre are dreams where you discover you still have things you haven't had for decades. I recall a dream where I discovered my old P-38 automatic had simple been stored in an unlikely place (since high school, I guess.)
Troy, 4?
p72 Schliemann began his search for Troy after retiring from his business enterprises as a millionaire at age forty-five or so...Schliemann made his money as a successful businessman, who earned one fortune selling indigo, tea, coffee, and sugar in the Crimea, and another during the California gold rush in 1851-52. It was in California that he served as a banker/middleman in Sacramento, buying gold dust from the miners and selling it to the Rothschild banking family, via its representative in San Francisco. He bought low and sold high -- and, some say, kept his thumb on the scales while doing so. He may well have left California one step ahead of the law, perhaps with as much as $2 million in profits, amid charges concerning the amount of gold dust that he was shipping....
I had no idea he had a local connection. I'm not going to go into any detail about Schliemann (since I don't really care) but I will say that the account of him here reminds me a great deal of Donald Trump -- though Schliemann may have been more deceiving than delusional. Well, maybe a few more details,
p75 Upon his return [to the Eastern Med.] from the United Sates, in September 1869, just a few months after procuring both his American citizenship and divorce through unorthodox and possibly illegal means, Schliemann married Sophia Engastromenos in Athens. He was forty-seven; she was sixteen. They had two children, whom they named Andromache and Agamemnon -- but that would come later...
Schliemann was in such a rush to get down to Troy II, which he believed to be the Troy Homer wrote about, that his workers dug through and dumped the more recent layers of Troy on the mound -- the remains of cities more recent in time -- including Troy VI and VII, which are now believed to be the actual levels of interest. He literally destroyed what he had been so desperate to find.
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