Book Written by Hand?

A big thank-you to Emily, who recommended this book for me to read!

World Made by Hand, by James Howard Kunstler, is the tale of the citizens of a small town in New York state some indeterminate time in the future after oil has become unavailable, and calamity, in the form of terrorism, political upheaval, and lethal epidemics, has overtaken the United States.

Since I found writing what amounted to a synopsis of Bringing Down the House tiresome - and dare I wonder whether a similar feeling overtook those who read that post - I will focus my attention on one aspect of World Made by Hand, which is the aesthetic quality of the landscape. This is one aspect of the book which I believe provides much of its charm. I would have liked to have discussed Kunstler's use of the religious (and supernatural), but it, along with Kunstler's overarching theme - the contrast between our present and that of the characters - provide innumerable examples and do them justice would require more time and effort than I am willing to put in. It may be said that looking at Kunstler's use of the landscape involves reference to his 'new dispensation', and to the extent that it does, I will thus be treating with that larger theme.

Citations are taken from the 2008 publication by Atlantic Monthly Press. The book is written from the perspective of its protagonist, Robert Earle, a carpenter in a small town in New York State by the name of Union Grove; in the direct citations, then, any reference to the first person ('I,' 'me,' and so on) refers to him.

Reader Recommendations: June

It's that time of month, for you out there to recommend books for me to read and comment upon for next month. I've enjoyed the recommended books for January, which, thanks to CPE and other delays, waited until May for completion. In my last update, I stated that I thought I would select only two books, but having finished all of the posts for books previously recommended to me, I will be choosing three after all.

Before making a recommendation, I suggest you read the guidelines on the page, 'How to Recommend Books'. Just select the hyperlink here, or you can click on the link of the same name on the right-hand side under the heading 'Pages'.

Don't forget to make your recommendations in the comments section of this post!

For June, it can be any sort of books you have in mind. The three books will be randomly chosen (I shall draw them from out of a hat) from the list of recommendations. I will be selecting the books on Sunday, May 15.

I'm looking forward to seeing your recommendations!

Bringing Down the House

One of the blurbs on the back of the copy of Bringing Down the House which I am reading calls it a 'truth-is-stranger-than-fiction tale', and, indeed, the summary of what author Ben Mezrich is recounting in the dust jacket seems implausible. A brief snippet should show what I mean:

In the midst of the go-go eighties and nineties, a group of overachieving, anarchistic MIT students joined a decades-old underground blackjack club dedicated to counting cards and beating the system at major casinos around the world. While their classmates were working long hours in labs and libraries, the blackjack team traveled weekly to Las Vegas and other glamourous gambling locales, with hundreds of thousands of dollars duct-taped to their bodies. Underwritten by shady investors they would never meet, these kids bet fifty thousand dollars a hand, enjoyed VIP suites and other upscale treats, and partied with showgirls and celebrities.
Handpicked by an eccentric mastermind - a former MIT professor and an obsessive player who had developed a unique system of verbal cues, body signals, and role-playing - this one ring of card savants earned more than three million dollars from corporate Vegas, making them the object of the casino's wrath and eventually targets of revenge. Here is their inside story, revealing their secrets for the first time.

If I didn't know that this was what actually happened, I wouldn't believe it to be true. It looks more like the script for a Hollywood movie than something that could occur in reality; but, then again, to paraphrase the blurb on the back cover, truth can often be stranger than fiction.

The edition from which I will be quoting was published by the Free Press; no publication date was given, but the notice of copyright to the author is for 2002. I should note that Mezrich includes the occasional profanity, which I do not always take the trouble to excise when I quote from the book, so I have labelled this post accordingly. Let it also be noted that we're talking about Vegas here, so I might need to refer to unseemly activity from time to time.

May Update

A couple of announcements:

1) I will be asking for reader recommendations in mid-May. I will probably be only asking for two this time, as I will still be working on a book recommended from January (yes, January); namely, Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card, which has only just become available at the library.

2) On that note, I am nearly finished my marginal commentaries on the other two books I selected for January: World Made by Hand, by James Howard Kunstler, and Bringing Down the House, by Ben Mezrich. Look for them to come out in the next week or so.

The Denial of Death: Human Character as a Vital Lie

First, here are the links to the previous posts on The Denial of Death:

Styx in Denial
The Terror of Death
Existential Dualism and You

Second, note the label on this post of 'profanity'.

Third, this post, which will cover the fourth chapter of the book (the title of which being whence I got the title of my post: 'Human Character as a Vital Lie'), will be the last I write on The Denial of Death for a while. It is a lot of work to comment upon a book of this nature, and the posts have been getting longer and longer as I have been going along. We could all use a break from so heavy a subject; on the other hand, it is quite appropriate for Holy Week.

The Denial of Death: Existential Dualism and You

First, some housekeeping: the links to my previous posts on Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death are here and here. You do not have to read these in order, of course; but you may find it helpful. Also note the 'profanity' label; Becker uses some straightforward words from time to time, and as his use of them often illustrates what he is trying to say, I'll be quoting him.

The third chapter of The Denial of Death (entitled 'The Recasting of Some Basic Psychoanalytic Ideas') focusses on key psychoanalytic concepts, some of which you may be familiar with, including the Oedipus complex and anality. Becker re-casts these concepts, moving them from out of the Freudian framework of sexuality (since for Becker sexuality is not the basic anxiety) and, following Norman O. Brown (from whose work Becker draws upon heavily in this chapter), putting them in a more existential framework.

In case you are wondering, I have been more or less commenting upon the book marginally as I read it. So after two chapters of Becker arguing about the importance of the fear (or terror) of death, it came as a bit of surprise to me when he seems to change course in the third chapter and argue, or so it seems to me, for something behind even the terror of death. Perhaps he returns to it later in the book.

A summary of Becker's argument in this chapter follows after the break; for now, suffice it to say that I find what he has to say here less convincing than what he had to say in the first two chapters.

The Denial of Death: The Terror of Death

As I wrote at the end of my last post on The Denial of Death:

Becker is going to explore the relationship between the idea of heroism, which he considers to be the driving force of human activity and social life, and the fact of death.

In the second chapter of the book, Becker's first step is to try to show that one of the motive forces of heroism is humankind's fear of death:

[O]f all things that move man, one of the principal ones is his terror of death. ... [H]eroism is first and foremost a reflex of the terror of death. We admire most the courage to face death[.] [p. 11]

The Denial of Death: Styx in Denial

Is the title of this post a clever riverine pun with regard to the book I will be commenting upon? And am I allowed to use 'riverine' in this fashion? You decide!

This is going to be a post of marginal commentary on a book which is, apparently, one of the most influential of the twentieth century, at least in terms of psychology. Since I want to be able to comment in depth, I will be looking at this book over the course of a number of posts, rather than try to get everything in all in one go.

The book in question is The Denial of Death, by Ernest Becker. The book won the Pullitzer Prize for non-fiction in 1974, which, as it happens, is the year Dr. Becker died: he won the award for the book posthumously. What a coincidence, eh? And my 'Canadianism' leads me to another interesting fact: Dr. Becker taught at Simon Fraser University (in Burnaby, B.C.; the school's diminutive is, happily, 'SFU').

Why did I choose this book? It was recommended to me to read during CPE, as I came to acknowledge that I have a certain amount of anxiety about death. Who doesn't? I think it will help me get through the book if I have a forum to write about it as I go along. I'm not sure what I am going to learn from it, but it should be an interesting read.

I probably won't write posts about every part of the book; we shall see. The edition I shall be quoting from or referring to is the paperback edition published by the Free Press in 1973.

Update: Back in the Habit

Now that my CPE unit at the Civic has finished, I will be getting back to marginal commentary and looking at books. I have some reader recommendations to finish, and I've read a few books during CPE which, if I can get my hands on them, will make for some interesting commenting.

Update: Singing the Marginal Blues

Early in January I suddenly became busy taking an intensive pastoral care course at the Civic Hospital (one campus of the amalgamated Ottawa Hospital).

Such is the nature of this course that I have had little time to write for this blog. It would be more accurate to say, rather, that I have not made the time to write for this blog. As I am beginning to work on the management of time, an aspect of the practice of virtue, I will find more time to write here as I waste less of time doing other things. Since, however, CPE cannot be categorised as a 'waste of time', I probably won't be on here frequently.

Like James Bond or the Termintator, I will be back.