Mess o'Mags, Snoop

I read two issues of The Economist, one of OK magazine, one of Vanity Fair, two issues of the New Scientist, five issues of Eclectic Reading, the New Yorker, and a book on first impressions called Snoop since my last entry. On my nightable are Introduction a la strategie by Phelizon and Desportes, which I haven't started, Anthologie mondiale de la strategie, by Gerard Chaliand, most of which I've read, but there are a few exceptions. Finally there is Le roman de l'anneau, South Asian mythology translated into French. I feel I haven't been working very much these days, but I have been putting in loan requests, which means that I'll have to pull up the socks.

The End of Chateaubriand

I complete reading the complete works of Chateaubriand. I found the last six volumes, those of his memoirs, to be the ones I most anticipated. I find, however, that I reacted much the way I had with John Diefenbaker's memoirs: he struck me in print as less intelligent than I expected. Part of it, of course, is that he probably wrote to earn money, not for his own edification, as with Saint-Simon. He is not incisive, I find, not does he have the gift of the telling detail -- but then, Mountbatten didn't either. And, of course, his memoirs are stuffed with correspondance and documents he retained from his career. That broke up the pace quite a bit. So in the end I find him to be correctly placed in the second rank.

And I found myself last night with only the latest issue of The Economist to read. What do you know? I'll have to get going on interlibrary loans today!

Magazines and more Chateaubriand

I read an issue of The Economist that was two weeks old, then three issues of Eclectic Reading, then the latest Esquire. Now I'm heavily into all 18 volumes of Chateaubriand -- his travels to the Middle East, which reminded me of Rebecca West's travelogue to Yugoslavia; his book on the early Christian martyrs (is Chateaubriand an ultramontane?); a very dated novel about north American aboriginals, called Les Natchez; Le genie du christianisme, which anticipates by 200 years what Balthasar did with La gloire et la croix; a north American travelogue, complete with descriptions of wildlife; and studies of antiquity, which I am reading now. This will bring me to Volume 10 of his complete works. To come: annotated French history; and his memoirs in 6 volumes! I look forward to it all.

The End of the Bronte's, The Start of Chateaubriand

I finished reading Charlotte Bronte's Shirley, which I liked for its satirical age and modernity. That means I have now read all the novels of all the Bronte's. I found them excellent in general, and their life stories very sad. All in all, I was impressed with their realism.

I also read Chateaubriand's Essai sur les revolutions anciennes et modernes. What erudition there was in that century, what knowledge of Antiquity in all the writers.

Bronte, Shaftesbury, Palat, Phelizon, Collingham, Wolin

I read Anne Bronte's Tenant of Windfell Hall, and what I liked about it was the subject matter, the story of a woman's marriage made intolerable by the husband's control and alcoholism. It struck me as very contemporary. I also read a biography of the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, a great humanitarian who introduced legislation to reform the conditions for chimney sweeps, coal mining women and children, and the mentally ill. It was moving and inspiring, although he seems to have been unhappy himself. I also read Palat's book on Clausewitz, dating from 1919. I've read many books like this one, discussing the great strategist and the great strategies, but as usual for authors in this period, their thinking strikes me now as limited. I read with great pleasure Phelizon's Action strategique. This book was excellent, and there are a number of similarities in the theory. I don't agree on every point, but that takes nothing away from the value of the work. I'm quite excited to find such similarities at last, after 20 years of research by my self. I also read Elizabeth Collingham's Curry, a history of food in India. It was very interesting, and was full of information I didn't know. For example, tea came from China with the British to India, and it took some time for the Indians to cotton on. Most Indian restaurants are held by Syhlets, formerly river boatmen who were put out of work by the steamboats the British introduced to India. Finally I read Richard Wolin's Heidegger Controversy, which was really germane to an article I'm writing. The problem is that he takes for granted something I am arguing in my present draft. I look forward to taking up the cudgel again.

Marivaux, lots o'mags

I read three of Marivaux's novels and all of his plays, 34 in number, while on a trip this week. It was interesting to see a man work and rework his themes, which is fluffy romantic comedy, until he perfects it. His novels, particularly Marianne, are funny but little read. His plays will use the same characters, from commedia dell'arte for example, over and over again. There are a lot of one-act plays, as well. Another aspect that was of interest to me was how he wrote the spoken French of the less educated, which is quite close to the French my own characters speak. For my novel, one only needs to suggest the dialect sounds, but for a play one has to write much more thoroughly how one speaks, and it was interesting to see that. I also wrote a booklet, written by several French authors from Ontario, about the publishing houses and what to expect for new writers. Published by the Ontario Association of Francophone Writers, it also offer a reading service for a small fee. Finally, I read the latest New Yorker, which had a heartbreaking article about John Keats, the latest Vanity Fair, and three issues of Eclectic Reading, which my common law partner Tony produces periodically.

I've got only Shirley yet to read so I can say I've read all the Bronte's, and assorted odds and ends on my night table, and the 18-volume set of Chateaubriand's complete works, all of which must be done before July 31st. I also have the e-book of Pin-Money, which I couldn't find in hard copy.

Chateaubriand, Desportes, Hamalainen

I completed the biography of Chateaubriand, in anticipation of the 18 volumes of his complete works being shipped out to me to read (!), and I was disappointed. The author is a great expert on Chateaubriand, but sold the editors (Flammarion Grande Biographie) a bill of goods: there are four large essays on Chateaubriand instead of a chronological biography, i.e. work the author had already done. So there was no sense of how the man developed over time, along his various careers as writer and politician.

I also read Pekka Hamalainen's Comanche Empire. This was interesting both for the content and the approach. The author detailed the Comanche tribe's history as if it was, say, 18th century France, as if it was an independent nation. As far as the content is concerned, the Comanche empire collapsed not because the might US Army conquered it, but because it had overstressed its natural resources, resulting in a terrible hunger, and then survived because it adapted. I am starting to think this is significant in the case of many civilizations, and I thought of course of the European settlements in Greenland.

I also read Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea, which I didn't like. I don't understand why anyone would write a novel about someone else's novel's character. However, she was prolific, and maybe she was making a feminist or nationalist point I'm missing.

I also read two more books by Vincent Desportes, on the US armed forces, which was very acute in its discussion, and an earlier book, Comprendre la guerre. This second book contained much that was familiar to me, but it was still clearly written and identified many points in which I am in agreement.

I read Cave Painters by Greg Curtis, which was more about the archaeologists working on the French prehistorical cave paintings, than about the cave paintings themselves. It actually said that there was little sexual content in the cave paintings, something counter intuitive that has since become disputed.

On my nighttable are the novels of Charlotte Bronte, a book on the Heidegger controversy, and Madame de Stael's Corinne, which I plan to read either this afternoon or on my return Friday.

Marivaux, Moers, Desportes, and others

I enjoyed reading Ellen Moer's Literary Women. First, I identified with much of the sorts of feelings those writers had. Second, I enjoyed reading about how George Eliot and another famous woman writer were nervous about contacting George Sand and decided to send their books to her together. Third, I liked learning that Jane Austen admired Felicite de Genlis, a woman author that is quite little know.

I also read Foucault's Naissance du regard clinique, which I thought was weak if easy to read. No, medicine did not base its diagnoses on botany, but on taxonomy used by both botany and animal science, in earlier centuries.

I read a quick essay on Marivaux, whose theatre and novels I'll be reading on my upcoming trip to Florida (print books are great technologies for airplanes). I like to read a biography or an essay before I take on the complete works.

I also read with great interest a book on the Ashington group, Pitmen Painters. This was a revelation: some of the painters had immense talent to rival the professional artists of their time, but came from the wrong class and background. It confirmed something that I long thought.

Finally, I read Desportes' Decider dans l'incertitude, which is admirably clearly written. It is about decision-making in the fog of war and reviews previous strategists' findings and looks at more contemporary situations.

I read this week's New Scientist, and my partner Tony's eclectic reading.

Foucault, Les mots et les choses

I just finished This book, possibly the last of Foucault's that I haven't yet read. He is resting his entire analysis of semiotics on the notice that, at the end of the XVIIIth century, the fields of knowledge that required synthesis became separate from the fields of knowledge that required analysis. In other words, social sciences became separate from the exact sciences. I have two comments about that. First, this is only one phase of a much broader phenomenon of the rise of scientism which has been chronicled and discussed at length by other French philosophers before Foucault. Second, I also noticed an epistemic revolution with the Aristotlelian revival about a century earlier, the consequences of which we are still experiencing.

More French Queens, courtesy of Simone Bertieres

I've read the last three volumes of Reines de France au temps des Bourbons. Marie-Antoinette, Louis XV's sisters, mistresses galore. It's all here. I had read a lot about these, but I think the interpretation of the marital problems of Louis and Marie-Antoinette was novel (various historians come up with different conclusions about why their marriage wasn't consummated for 7 years -- he needed and was afraid of a circumcision; she was unstimulated and had pain on penetration and he wouldn't press the issue). I also liked the interpretation that she rebelled against the stodginess of the French court, and how she came to appreciate her husband's strength when they were emprisonned. It was all very sad, of course. People famous in history generally lead unhappy lives.