69. How does one write about the things as devastating but inevitable as the death of one's father or things as absurd as the fear of flying -- all the while avoiding the comforts of sentimentalism & the seduction of self-indulgence. Essays by one of the greatest living masters.
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70. Additions to this list:
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2018 history books I learned/enjoyed:
1/ A Zamoyski's 'Napoleon' + Decker's 'Hesse'
2/ C Mann's 'The Wizard & the Prophet'; (food)
3/ A Tooze's 'Crashed' ($$)
4/ F Fauvelle's 'The Golden Rhinoceros' (medieval Africa)
5/ C Clark's 'Time & Power' (German understandings of history) twitter.com/HistoryToday/s…
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71. I often found myself rooting for Hannibal of Carthage (courage + ambition + ruthless amorality) to plunder, rape, & murder Rome. Then I realized it was Livy's narrative genius. Th higher Hannibal rose, greater wld be Rome's glory when his inevitable end arrived. Splendid.
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72. Why re-translate an autobiography originally translated by Mahadev Desai & reviewed by Gandhi? A few reasons:
1/ They were all in a hurry.
2/ Many influencers of the text(s) didn't speak Gujarati.
3/ His translators soft pedalled Gandhi's moral harshness.
Magnificent work.
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73. In 1943, an Egyptian peasant found the Gnostic Gospels -- the sacred books of an early Christian sect. An eye-opening study of how did the Gnostics & the later orthodox Christianity construct and differ on ideas of God & how did they see the move from Jesus to Christ. Great.
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74. What is the nature of this strange relationship between humans who are neither family nor lovers? Where is the source of disappointments among friends? Is friendship 'beautiful', if yes is it the same beauty as that of art or love? A meditation by a great Nietzsche scholar.
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75. How should we value the passage of time? Or discount back the promise to repay in the future? If you think long enough, you'll see that nothing is easy to disentangle. An extraordinary historical survey of understanding of risk, time preference, collateral has evolved.
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76. A biography that I was in awe of for how intimately the author seemingly knew one of the great philosophers of the 20thC; also a revelatory portrait of a young man who struggles to grow out of the shadows of his great & complex teacher, Heidegger.
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77. Letters b/w a Jewish woman & a German man for 40+years, through marriages and loves to others, her ferocious mind and his quietist luminescence, separated by the Atlantic between them, united in a tender affection that they both worked on, words to accompany the other's mind.
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78. Among the great American authors, I wd've liked to meet Stegner the most. His sentences - neither terse as Hemingway, nor extravagant as Faulkner - clip clop at a steady pace. Yet, they remain pregnant w/ sentiment all the while cloaked in a nobility to make a show of it all.
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Replying to
hee hee, I wish. glad you enjoyed this thread, which has become a sort of catalogue of markers of various phases/fancies I had. thx for writing.
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