Berlin, Mazzieri, Muller

Since my last post, I've read three issues of Eclectic Reading, an issue of The New Yorker, an issue of The Economist, an issue of OK Magazine, and an issue of The New Scientist.

I've also read Discours sur la tombe de l'idiot by Julie Mazzieri. The novel is a cut above murder mystery, and is written in a spare yet complete style. I also read The Passport by the Nobel winner Herta Muller. That was written so sparely I had to concentrate a lot to read it through. I liked it. I also am reading Isaiah Berlin, and I've read several of his lectures. The most interesting of these was the one about Tolstoy's philosophy of history, The fox and the Hedgehog. Finally, I understand that Greek metaphor. Also I am going to read Joseph de Maistre next, since he influenced Tolstoy so much, in tandem with Rousseau. I also read Two Concepts of Liberty, of which I quote:"One belief, more than any other, is responsible for the slaughter of individuals on the alters of the great historical ideas...This is the belief that somewhere, in the past, or in the future, in divine revelation or in the mind of an individual thinker, in the pronouncements of history or science, or in the simple heart of an uncorrupted good man, there is a final solution." p. 52. Now ain't that the truth? I had come to understand this, but he has put it far more pithily. I also read Magus of the North.