Books are in a sad way these days. It's especially sad to think that this major way of communicating with other minds has dwindled to a point where it does not have the significance it hadwhen we were young (and just think how important the printed word was in the 19th century).
Books on the mid-list, for the intelligent and the literary have really taken a beating. However, we can get our books out through self-publishing, and due to the internet and digitalization they will be there forever so that those who want tofind them can find them.
Saul Bellow said many decades ago that in the future those who read literature will be a small group like those who read Latin, and maybe form clubs to discuss books. But it has reallyalways been that way, with the best-sellers supporting the mid-list,and the mid-list paying off over time.
The agglomeration of the book industry has meant that short-term pay-offs have replaced the investment in good books for the future of the company. And while serious book readers have always been a very small percentage of the population, the debasement of what is published is what is thesaddest. The sharing of great minds cannot take place on TV, not evenin discussion programs; unless viewed as history.
People who write will always write, because that is what we do. We write. No matter what. But at least the delusion so many have that money can be made writing serious fiction will fade, as it should, and we will havefewer books by the less serious, at least in the literary world.
Ah,well, acceptance is the key to all my problems. Neither of us is going to be around long enough to really see the loss of the book's importance to the growth of humanity.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Books
SOME FEW ODD BOOKS I HAVE ENJOYED
BUTCHER'S CROSSING by John Williams. Williams only published three novels in his life-time. But this is one, dealing with the last days of commerical buffalo hunting, that you will not be able to forget.
THE DYNAMICS OF FAITH by Paul Tillich has been another seminal book for me. In it Tillich explains the difference between faith and belief. Faith is something we have that is largely undefinable, though we do attempt it, while belief involves statements that are arguable. We go to war over beliefs, but not over faith (this, of course, is my own addendum). But read the book: a truly intellectual approach to the subject, which you rarely get from "believers."
THE TRUE BELIEVER by Eric Hoffer. What a wonderful little book. It's about the fanatic. Hoffer was a stevedore, I understand, who published this one book when he was in his sixties. But I would guess he had made notes on the subject for years, and finally, after much reflection, finally published them.
VALUES IN A UNIVERSE OF CHANCE: Selected Writings of Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914), Edited by Philip P. Wiener and published by DoubledayAnchor in 1958 is an important book for me in as much as the philosophical values and beliefs it contains are pretty much those I also have come to after much reading of philosophy.
The first 50 pages of A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes, the part that takes place on the island before the kids leave withs the pirates.
A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES by John Kennedy Toole. Such a marvelous sense of humor. Too bad that, turned down by 8 publishers, he committed suicide. His mother, who is marvelously caricatured in the novel, persisted and got it published after his death.
CARDS OF IDENTITY by Nigel Dennis. Wonderful spoof on Communism and the Church of England in the 50s. Probably out of date now.
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE BREAKDOWN OF THE BICAMERAL MIND by Julian Jaynes. Such a seminal book for me! I always wondered why history only began about 4000 BC; this book answers the question -- at least to my satisfaction.
BUTCHER'S CROSSING by John Williams. Williams only published three novels in his life-time. But this is one, dealing with the last days of commerical buffalo hunting, that you will not be able to forget.
THE DYNAMICS OF FAITH by Paul Tillich has been another seminal book for me. In it Tillich explains the difference between faith and belief. Faith is something we have that is largely undefinable, though we do attempt it, while belief involves statements that are arguable. We go to war over beliefs, but not over faith (this, of course, is my own addendum). But read the book: a truly intellectual approach to the subject, which you rarely get from "believers."
THE TRUE BELIEVER by Eric Hoffer. What a wonderful little book. It's about the fanatic. Hoffer was a stevedore, I understand, who published this one book when he was in his sixties. But I would guess he had made notes on the subject for years, and finally, after much reflection, finally published them.
VALUES IN A UNIVERSE OF CHANCE: Selected Writings of Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914), Edited by Philip P. Wiener and published by DoubledayAnchor in 1958 is an important book for me in as much as the philosophical values and beliefs it contains are pretty much those I also have come to after much reading of philosophy.
The first 50 pages of A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes, the part that takes place on the island before the kids leave withs the pirates.
A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES by John Kennedy Toole. Such a marvelous sense of humor. Too bad that, turned down by 8 publishers, he committed suicide. His mother, who is marvelously caricatured in the novel, persisted and got it published after his death.
CARDS OF IDENTITY by Nigel Dennis. Wonderful spoof on Communism and the Church of England in the 50s. Probably out of date now.
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE BREAKDOWN OF THE BICAMERAL MIND by Julian Jaynes. Such a seminal book for me! I always wondered why history only began about 4000 BC; this book answers the question -- at least to my satisfaction.
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