In the Blogosphere: À mon chevet

Charles Downey, over at Ionarts, has begun a series of blog posts entitled "À mon chevet" wherein he provides a quote from a book sitting on his nightstand and some commentary. In this most recent post, he offers a selection from John Dos Passos' 1919, the second volume of the USA Trilogy.

In Progress: Omnivore's Dilemma

I'm halfway through The Omnivore's Dilemma and am so impressed by the sheer scope of the work. In fact, one reason it is taking me so long to finish, is that I find myself needing to take a break so I can fully "digest" each chapter (pun intended).

What I appreciate the most, however, is the experiential data and the lack of sanctimony. When it comes to what we eat, there are few unadulterated heroes. Pollan leaves few stones unturned and is equitable when examining industrial agriculture, the "organic" movement, and even the idyllic farming pastoral embodied by the small family farm.

Finally, Pollan's writing is an absolute joy to read, peppered with humor and enthusiasm for his subject. I'll include a few excerpts here that I found most thoughtful and engaging.

Yet the organic label itself--like every other such label in the supermarket--is really just an imperfect substitute for direct observation of how a food is produced, a concession to the reality that most people in an industrial society haven't the time or the inclination to follow their food back to the farm, a farm which today is apt to be, on average, fifteen hundred miles away. (137)

Ain't that the truth? And really, that's the point of the book, as far as I can tell thus far. If we invested more emotional and mental energy into what we eat (including pondering where the food comes from), we could really impact the entire chain--from farm to table.

Pollan begins his journey with an examination of corn, which is the closest thing to a clear-cut villain in his story:

Corn has done more than any other species to help the food industry realize the dream of freeing food from nature's limitations and seducing the omnivore into eating more of a single plant than anyone would ever have thought possible. (91)

Seduction is a good word for it. Advertising and economics have seduced us into what we now have as the "typical" American diet. Corn, Pollan offers, may be one of the lousiest bedfellows around for numerous reasons.

And finally, while shopping at Whole Foods today, Pollan's words lodged in the back of my mind:

I enjoy shopping at Whole Foods nearly as much as I enjoy browsing a good bookstore, which, come to think of it, is probably no accident: Shopping at Whole Foods is a literary experience, too. That's not to take anything away from the food, which is generally of high quality, much of it "certified organic" or "humanely raised" or "free range." But right there, that's the point: It's the evocative prose as much as anything else that makes this food really special, elevating an egg or chicken breast or bag of arugula from the realm of ordinary protein and carbohydrates into a much headier experience, one with complex aesthetic, emotional, and even political dimensions. (135)

I can't wait to read more.

Why Should We Read?

I just finished reading a most interesting article in the New Yorker. Caleb Crain's "Twilight of the Books" decries the decline in reading (supported by substantial data) and examines some of the differences between literate and illiterate learning. I recommend reading the entire article, but here are few excerpts upon which I'd like to comment.

In an oral culture, cliché and stereotype are valued, as accumulations of wisdom, and analysis is frowned upon, for putting those accumulations at risk. There's no such concept as plagiarism, and redundancy is an asset that helps an audience follow a complex argument...Since there's no way to erase a mistake invisibly, as one may in writing, speakers tend not to correct themselves at all. Words have their present meanings but no older ones, and if the past seems to tell a story with values different from current ones, it is either forgotten or silently adjusted. As the scholars Jack Goody and Ian Watt observed, it is only in a literate culture that the past's inconsistencies have to be accounted for, a process that encourages skepticism and forces history to diverge from myth."

I can think of entire groups of people who are probably cursing Gutenberg. :-)

While I'm not ready to indict oral culture (and I think that "cliché" and "stereotype" take on slightly different meanings in an illiterate context, given that those terms are from the language of literacy), I do believe that a decline in reading is contributing much to the ignorance and apathy so prevalent in the world. Reading is force-fed in the schools, but often what is missing is the other component: writing. Writing forces critical thinking. Multiple choice options may test basic comprehension of facts, but they do not test the ability of the student to engage with the material in a critical way. The ball is red. The ball belongs to Sam. The child has learned two bits of data but has not been given any kind of encouragement to think creatively (one of the biggest benefits to be had in reading books!) If reading, from an early age, is merely the conveyance of information, where is the motivation to read? Why not watch television, which can also convey information? Television is entertaining, but the images come so quickly, there is little time to think beyond them (although some will analyze these images afterward). There is no "pause" button necessary in reading. And chapters are not determined by advertising money.

In citing data regarding the increased participation of readers in cultural activities and voting, Crain offers:

"Perhaps readers venture so readily outside because what they experience in solitude gives them confidence. Perhaps reading is a prototype of independence. No matter how much one worships an author, Proust wrote, "all he can do is give us desires." Reading somehow gives us the boldness to act on them. Such a habit might be quite dangerous for a democracy to lose."

Food for thought, yes?

50BC07 #23: Sunday Philosophy Club (Isabel Dalhousie #1)

50 BOOK CHALLENGE 2007 Number 23 BOOK: The Sunday Philosophy Club (An Isabel Dalhousie Mystery) AUTHOR: Alexander McCall Smith PUBLISHER: (c) 2004/ Anchor Books, 2005 PAGES: 247 GENRE: Mystery 4 out of 5 stars Well, I fit one more book into 2007. This is the first book in the Isabel Dalhousie series, and while fans of the Ladies' No. 1 Detective Agency series will recognize the folksy and cozy narrative style, Isabel Dalhousie is a different kind of protagonist than Mma Ramotswe. Like the Ladies' No. 1 Detective Agency books, this story is not plot driven, but character driven. Like the Homer Kelly mysteries of Jane Langton, McCall Smith's mysteries tend to be on the lighter side (relatively gore-free), but filled with historical and cultural references. Isabel is a philosopher, and as the editor of the Journal of Applied Ethics, manages to view her interaction with the world as one large moral quandary. While she may consider Kant in her musings on every day situations, she is a very human character, subject to the same temptations and foibles as her non-philosopher friends. A basic understanding of general philosophical trends is helpful, but by no means necessary, to enjoy this book. The philosophical references are not overbearing and do not have the same relevancy that they have in the work of Umberto Eco, for example. The characters are vivid and are solid stock for a series. The actual mystery is not central to the story, which is more focused on Isabel's relationship to the world around her. A very good read for a rainy day. Books 1-22: 1. Getting Things Done--David Allen (nonfic) 2. The Geography of Nowhere--Howard Kunstler (nonfic) 3. Misreadings--Umberto Eco (essays) 4. The Curtain--Milan Kundera (litcrit) 5. Bach Among the Theologians--Jaroslav Pelikan (nonfic) 6. 40 Days & 40 Bytes: Making Computers Work for Your Congregation (nonfic) 7. The Witch of Portobello--Paulo Coelho (fiction) 8. Suffer The Little Children--Peter Tremayne (mystery) 9. The Dante Club-Matthew Pearl (mystery) 10. The Audacity of Hope--Barack Obama (nonfic) 11. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows--JK Rowling (fiction) 12. What is The What--Dave Eggers (fiction) 13. The Good Husband of Zebra Drive--Alexander McCall Smith (fiction) 14. The City of Ladies--Christine de Pizan (treatise) 15. Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon--Michael Ghiglieri (nonfic) 16. That Hideous Strength (Book 3 of the Space Trilogy)-C.S. Lewis (fiction) 17. Consider the Lobster-David Foster Wallace (essays) 18. Writing to Learn-William Zinsser (nonfic) 19. A Home At the End of the World-Michael Cunningham (fiction) 20. Muscular Re-training for Pain Free Living--Craig Williamson (self-help) 21. Music in American Life-Jacques Barzun (nonfic) 22. House of Shadows- The Medieval Murderers (fiction/mystery)

Introduction

In an effort to organize all my various interests, I have established this separate blog to talk about: BOOKS!

I love to read, and I wanted a place where I could write about the books I've read and the books I am reading. I often have thoughts BEFORE I finish a book and want to write them down here. Hopefully, folks will chime in with their comments.

Musicologically-oriented books will still be discussed over at Musically Miscellaneous Mayhem, but all other books will have a place here.

Reading NOW (I seem to be going through a non-fiction phase):
The Omnivore's Dilemma (Michael Pollan)
The First Christmas (Marcus Borg & John Dominic Crossan)
Three Classics in the Aesthetics of Music (Debussy, Busoni & Ives)

Just finished: The Sunday Philosophy Club (Alexander McCall Smith)

I participated in the 50 Book Challenge for 2007, and came in well under at 22. I plan to change that in 2008.

Christine de Pizan's City of Ladies

50 Book Challenge #14: The City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan (trans. Rosalind Brown-Grant, Penguin Classics, 1999).

Christine de Pizan, writing in the year 1405, writes a treatise on feminist equality by way of a dialogue with personifications of Reason, Rectitude and Justice. These three "sisters" help Christine to edify and fortify her "City of Ladies" wherein women are able to celebrate their full potential, unhindered by the malevolent misogyny so prevalent to the time.

While Reason, Rectitude and Justice rattle off a laundry list of historical female exemplars, the real value of the treatise lies with Christine herself. While the Christine in the book plays the part of the virtuous, but naive, young woman, the subtext makes clear that Christine de Pizan is an intellectual force with which to be reckoned. She demonstrates a knowledge of literature, philosophy, and rhetoric that was inaccessible to many women of the time. If her argument fails in any sense, it is only in that she fails to address how women might rise above their station.

And while Christine focuses on negating the misogynistic assertions of other writers, her own feminist thought has its limits. She admits, through the voice of Reason, that it would "not be right for [women] to abandon their customary modesty and to go about bringing cases before a court." It is, however, necessary for Christine to abandon her own modesty, which she does in several instances, particularly through self-referencing her earlier related works. The dialogue style enables her to do this without too much self-aggrandizement.

While none of the ideas contained within The City of Ladies will shock the 21st century western mind, the larger lesson on the power of the word is invaluable.

The Good Husband of Zebra Drive (McCall Smith) - No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency #8

 

The Good Husband of Zebra Drive by Alexander McCall Smith
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a surprise eighth installment to a series that was supposed to end with seven. While I am a big fan of the series, I found this particular book to be disappointing for a number of reasons, most of them related to the plot.
As is his usual set-up, McCall Smith starts a series of mini-mysteries to be solved by the ever-resourceful Mma Ramotswe and/or her colorful assistant, Mma Makutsi. In this book, several characters get their own mystery to solve, some with more success than others. Some of the plot lines break down, only to be gathered up hastily with weak explanations. There is also a lack of continuity between some of the story lines.
While the subplots have some definite leaks, the author's painting of the characters continues to be what makes these books so good. The reader learns a bit more about Mr. JLB Matekoni, although the mystery behind his depression remains as such. Mma Makutsi continues to have enjoyable dialogues with her shoes as she prepares for the next phase in her life. The children, Motholeli and Puso, make only brief appearances, as does Phuti Radiphuti.
There are still a few open loops in the tale of Mma Ramotswe and cohorts, so the author might not be finished with the series. Should there be a next installment, however, I hope that McCall Smith finds a fresh supply of creative plot lines.

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