Make Philosophy Fun Again! Read my new essay at "European Conservative"
What I'm Reading
Burn The Town and Sack the Banks
There are many interesting, lesser-known theatres of the War Between the States--the home front, the western, the diplomatic, and the maritime--but who knew that Confederate soldiers raided Vermont?
An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845 ed.)
While still an Anglican, John Henry Newman, penned an excellent rebuttal to those who claim that authentic Christianity has been distorted by various philosophers, saints, emperors, councils, etc. The late Fr. Jaki edited and contributed a excellent introduction to the text. Two great minds in one volume!
The Name of the Wind
Like a lot of men my age, I played "Dungeons & Dragons" and read fantasy-fiction novels. Tolkien is rightly considered the king but I also fondly recall time spent with LeGuin, McKillip, Lewis, Howard, Baum, Boyer, Watt-Evans and Bellairs.
For some decades, however, I largely avoided the genre. The plots became increasingly absurd, and the characters all acted and reasoned as modern bourgeoisie liberals. Greg Keyes and Steven Erikson were entertaining, but I turned to other genres for escapism. (Perhaps I will devote a future post to Jack McDevitt's "Alex Benedict" space adventures and Lincoln Child's "Jeremy Logan" thrillers.)
Lately I have begun, with great trepidation, to sample some of the current writers in fantasy. Curiosity and a touch of nostalgia prompted me to seek a worthy heir to the throne of Tolkien. Patrick Carr and John Flanagan both have the moral vision but came up short on the storytelling. The next names on my list are Patrick Rothfuss, J.R. Leach, R.E. Palmer (no relation) and Vox Day.
Concerning Rothfuss, I am presently 658 pages into The Name of the Wind and regret to inform you that this book is not worth your time. First, the author lacks Tolkien's narrative ability. His tale is long (and disjointed), but neither vivid nor grandly told. Rothfuss also seems to be an overgrown adolescent and wastes a lot of time detailing the amorous thoughts of Kvothe, his young protagonist. Kvothe's pursuit of the mysterious, older Denna is plotted in such a clumsy way that the reader will dread her next appearance. One final complaint: Rothfuss selected the tired school-for-magic setting for a large chunk of his epic.
“Every being has the act of existing in proportion to its approach in likeness to God. But insofar as it is unlike him it approaches nonbeing. And we can say the same of all attributes present both in God and in creatures. Thus is His intellect the measure of all knowledge, His goodness of all goodness, and, more precisely, His goodwill of every goodwill. So, every goodwill is good by being conformed to the divine goodwill.”
~St. Thomas Aquinas
New to My Library
The Moonstone
Kings Langley Press has just released a beautiful illustrated edition of this classic mystery novel.
Strabo's Geography
If you love the "Landmark" series of annotated classical texts, you will also want to own Sarah Pothecary's new translation of Strabo.
Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
Princeton's new series offers an alternative to Harvard's esteemed Loeb Library. Volumes are arranged topically--e.g. How to Think About God--and feature legitimate translations of selections from ancient classics (with the original Greek or Latin text on a facing page). Some volumes feature several authors while others highlight one: How to Flourish is an abridged, newly translated version of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Although I already own most of these texts in some form of other, I loved the idea of presenting classic texts in a fresh way without watering them down. This series is one of the most interesting in recent years and belongs right up there with Loeb, I Tatti, CUA's Fathers of the Church, the Yale Library of Medieval Philosophy, and Bloomsbury's Ancient Commentators series.
Dietrich Von Hildebrand:
“One of the deepest marks of true personality is the state of being spiritually awake. A genuine personality is distinguished from the average man precisely by the fact that he does not wade through life in a state of spiritual inertia. He does not contemplate in an isolated way what approaches him but beholds it in the light of the general cosmic background, in conspectu Dei, and lives in continual consciousness of the metaphysical situation of man.”