UNESCO Part VI

I read Youssouf le taciturne, whose author was assassinated as a political subversive in Turkey. The value of this novel seems to have been in the quality of the language, which in translation has not been preserved. The novel is otherwise conventional. I also read L'Espadon, about Cyprus: this was a plotless novel noticeable for the integration of Turkish and Greek characters.

As I wanted a break from this type of reading, I read The New Scientist's latest issue, two issues of Eclectic Reading, and Trente-six strategemes by Phelizon. I was not familiar with this Chinese work of strategy, which was only discovered in the forties. I found the introduction interesting for the questions it raised in my mind: are all strategies outside the military stratagems? How does the classification of frontale, oblique and laterale dovetail with Andre Beaufre's action and persuasion, direct and indirect classification? Does the author believe that strategy outside the military or economic sphere exists?

I also read Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South, the first time I read Gaskell. I liked it mostly because I enjoyed the miniseries I got as a gift. I also started to read the Phantom Table about epistemology and Virginia Woolfe, but the book was so laden with jargon I put it down after only sixty-odd pages. I had better luck with Distracted, which I read cover to cover, but I found the diatribe got in the way of the argument, regarding the assault on powers of concentration by technology.