| The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Japan and Germany by Ian Buruma, 309 pages James Donahue 27 May 2004 | Occidentalism by Ian Buruma, 148 pages James Donahue 08 June 2004 Buruma finds the roots of current Islamic anti-Westernism in European Romanticism. As always ,Buruma is morally and literarily inspiring, but without any actual links or "smoking guns" he is forced to rely on arguments from resemblence. Like another of my favorites, Buruma misses the point when he deals with the cynics of the Enlightenment, engaging in some crude reductionism himself. |
Murder in Amsterdam: The Murder of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance (2006) by Ian Buruma, 264 pages James Donahue 24 December 2006 On 2 November, a young Morroccan immigrant, juiced up on Islamism, tracked down Theo Van Gogh, great-grandnephew of the artist and the artistic version of a 'shock jock', and shot him at midday on his bike in downtown Amsterdam. Buruma is from this neighborhood. In this book he goes home and interviews people associated with the event: the youth's friends and iman, a Somali politician and friend of Van Gogh who despises her 'backward' upbringing, Dutch people who feel trapped between their resentment at the browning of their capital city and their Dutch pride in their progressivism. Buruma is even-handed in this exploration of Europe's most pressing problem. In this country Islamism is a foreign threat and a foreign war; in Europe Islamism is a quarter of the country, wrapped up in guilty feelings about the Holocaust and imperialism, more political because so much of European society is based upon nationality. |
The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell, 384 pages Mike Gadd 11 November 2004 |
Voltaire in Exile: The Last Years, 1753-78 (2004) by Ian Davidson, 308 pages James Donahue 02 January 2006 In 1753, Voltaire learned during his return from hobnobbing with Frederick the Great that he was exiled from Paris. So he used his fortune (gained not from selling books, but from winning the lottery) to buy an estate just outside Geneva, settling down to a life as factory-owner, agriculturalist replete with peasants, critic of the Church, earthquakes, and Genevan-native Rousseau and, above all else, tourist attraction. In Geneva I lived a few blocks from Voltaire's house (now a museum containing his archives), no longer an estate and swallowed up by apartment buildings. |
The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives on Interpretation by Ian Kershaw, 225 pages James Donahue 15 October 2002 Kershaw examines the often rancorous historiographic debates surronding Nazism. Specific issue include: the relative responsibility of non-Nazis for the Holocaust, Hitler's personal role and power over the regime, the restrictions that overt moralism places on historical research, and the conflicting accounts between Germans and Jews. The book is meant for the non-specialist and is a good introduction to the historiography; Kershaw also presents sound and fair evaluations of the issues. |
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan, 193 pages Jaqi Ross 11 August 2004 A contemporary morality tale that is as profound as it is witty, we have Ian McEwan at his wisest and most wickedly disarming. And why Amsterdam? What happens there to Clive and Vernon is the most delicious climax of a novel brimming with surprises. |
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan, 193 pages James Donahue 30 June 2005 This is my first McEwan novel, chosen because it won the Booker Prize in 1998. About halfway through the book, however, I began to suspect that this particular Booker was awarded more for the author's ouerve and reputation than for the merits of these pages. McEwan writes about 'weighty' subjects with the graceful, page-turning prose of a Tom Clancy. That's an achievement, but given the wonderful things I hear about McEwan, I hope that I'll find a bit more when I pick him up next time. |
Atonement by Ian McEwan, 351 pages James Donahue 06 September 2005 While at colonial Williamsburg for four days, and obeying the advertisements to discover the "colonial me" (who turned out to be quite a slaveholding bastard, forced to remain sober in the presence of his in-laws), I kept my nose intermittantly buried in a book that hooked. Even though this forum seems to bear an a priori antipathy to multiple-persective books, especially self-aware ones, I very much recommend this book. Its style and theme -- narrative as sympathy/atonement -- can overcome its trendiness. |
Atonement by Ian McEwan, 351 pages Kristin Schrock 02 December 2005 Jim was right. The novel is told in multi-p.o.v. and shockingly I didn't mind because I liked all the characters except one, and that was the shortest part. I thought the ending particularly enjoyable as it rivals The French Lieutenant's Woman for cool commentary on storytelling. Chesterfields abound, but McEwan pretty much had me at the Northanger Abbey epigraph. Amazon.com Stats: 7.8 grade level with 9% of the words being complex. |
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan, 178 pages Kristin Schrock 02 February 2006 Not quite as poignant as Atonement, but still enjoyable examination of chance and choice and misinterpretations leading to tragedy. Although the final action that leads to the tragedy didn't quite track for me, his characters are vivid and his use of language masterful. |
Saturday by Ian McEwan, 289 pages Jonathan Misirian 23 February 2006 A day in the life of a British neurosurgeon. In one 24 hour span he observes a fiery plane land at Heathrow, has sex with his wife, get caught up in an anti-war protest, is assaulted, plays squash, finds out his unmarried daughter is expecting, has his family terrorized, performs neurosurgery on the familial assailant, showers and has sex again with his wife. |
On Chesil Beach (2007) by Ian McEwan, 203 pages James Donahue 10 September 2007 MeEwan relates a honeymoon gone extremely wrong (think: premature excitement, bride running and screaming from the room) in the prelapsarian early 1960s when people (gasp!) waited for marriage and lacked any fundamental sex education. The tone is nostalgic for such lost innocence, yet plainly those days could only have failed. The bride and groom here are remnants of a lost culture, fit for novelistic elegy but not for the real modern world. |
Chasing Francis by Ian Morgan Cron, 252 pages Jonathan Misirian 11 January 2007 Cron presents a fictional account of a pastor’s discontent with his church, and his successive search for vocational meaning… St. Francis of Assisi is convincingly presented as the antidote for modern day pastoral malaise. |
Liberal Government and Politics, 1905-1915 (2006) by Ian Packer, 180 pages James Donahue 30 October 2006 To quote Pink Floyd: "Is there anybody out there? Just nod if you can hear me." |
Nature's Numbers by Ian Stewart, 150 pages Steve Gadd 21 January 2002 Poorly written, but introduces some interesting concepts in chaos theory. |
The Monkey in the Mirror by Ian Tattersall, 205 pages Steven Krise 29 May 2002 From this eminent paleoanthropologist (only 2 degress separated from the late, great SJ Gould (via Niles Eldridge)) comes a collection of essays on hominid evolution united by the theme (punk eq) that innovations in the hominid line (that's us) were sporadic and not at all the "refinements" (Neo-Darwinian gradualism) that one so often hears about. It'll be weeks before I get the twisted tune of that lame early 90s Michael Jackson tune out of my head, but otherwise a worthwhile read. |
The Human Odyssey - Four Million Years of Human Evolution by Ian Tattersall, 191 pages Steven Krise 18 January 2004 "Based on the acclaimed new hall of Human Biology and Evolution at the American Museum of Natrual History". This overview starts discussing the details of cells and DNA and the general principles of evolution before moving through mammalian evolution. The focus, not surprisingly, settles on primate evolution and heads down the hominid branch. Finishes up with an impressive review of the Solutrean and Magdelenian cave art typified by that appearing in Lascaux. |
Becoming Human by Ian Tattersall, 258 pages Steven Krise 21 September 2008 Gets a little scattered and speculative in the last chapter (on human consciousness and the future of our species), but overall a good survey of hominid evolution with a focus on how our unique brand of brain/mind evolved. |
Kaddish for a Child Not Born by Imre Kertesz, 95 pages Tony Pisarenkov 25 July 2005 This stream-of-consciousness philosophical treatise cum memoir masquearding as a novella tells the story of a writer, a professional, social and romantic failure, who explains, through the general prism of his Jewishness, how his experience at Auschwitz made him unable to bring another being into this world. Heavy stuff, a bit self-absorbed at times, but intellectually and emotionally intense. |
Bushido: The Soul of Japan by Inazo Nitobe, 154 pages James Donahue 16 March 2004 The classic essay on the ethic of the samurai |
A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch, 205 pages Kristin Schrock 20 November 2004 A bizarre love hexagon: Martin, who is married to Antonia, is having an affair with Georgie. Antonia confesses an affair with Palmer. Martin subsequently falls in love with Honor, Palmer's sister. Georgie has an affair with Martin's brother, Alexander (who may or may not be having an affair with Antonia). The novel opened with dialogue (so I didn't have high expectations) and even with all the Melrosian affairs, it was a bit dull until it took a much needed twisted turn towards the end. Recommended vocabulary: pusillanimity, sybarite, insuperably. |
When Nietzsche Wept by Irvin D. Yalom, 301 pages Steve Gadd 04 February 1996 |
Love's Executioner by Irvin D. Yalom, 270 pages Steve Gadd 24 May 2005 Thelma cannot function because of her ardent love for Matthew, though she hasn't seen him in eight years. Saul quakes with fear over three letters that he hasn't opened, certain that they will reveal that his entire career has been a fraud. Penny can't relate to her sons after losing a daughter to cancer. Marvin, a boring, shallow accountant nearing retirement, seeks help for his migraines, but he has little faith in therapy and no inclination toward introspection -- meanwhile his amazingly rich and suggestive dreams show that he is paralyzed with fear of death. These are among the ten tales of psychotherapy which provide an absorbing look at what goes on in the room with the couch. Judging from his success in these stories, Dr. Yalom is an adept, existentialist practitioner of the "talking cure." He doesn't put much store in textbook diagnoses and feels that productive work only comes from the development of a meaningful relationship between the patient and therapist. He likes to quote Nietzsche and lists four factors as particularly relevant to his work: "the inevitability of death for each of us and for those we love; the freedom to make our lives as we will; our ultimate aloneness; and, finally, the absence of any obvious meaning or sense to life." |
When Nietzsche Wept (1992) by Irvin Yalom, 306 pages Jonathan Misirian 24 January 2007 For those passionate about the era that gave birth to psychoanalysis... When Nietzsche Wept weaves together a fictional account of Lou Salome, Josef Breuer, a young Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche. This historical novel inter-twines these characters so that Yalom can give us his take on love, lust, marriage, life and meaning. |
Lust For Life by Irving Stone, 453 pages Steve Gadd 29 November 1998 Fictionalized biography of van Gogh. Hard to tell what's made up; I think I would prefer Dear Theo, the letters of the artist to his brother, collected by this author. |
Nightfall and Other Stories by Isaac Asimov, 312 pages Steve Gadd 19 March 1999 Despite the author's insistence, 'Nightfall' is still the best, later expanded into a novel co-authored by Robert Silverberg. |
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov, 192 pages Steven Krise 03 July 2004 Wir funktionieren automatik. Jetzt wollen wir tanzen mechanik. Wir sind auf alles programmiert und was du willst wird ausgeführt. Wir sind die Roboter. |
City of the Beasts by Isabel Allende, 406 pages A Bennett 30 April 2004 A disparate team of anthropologists, military and drug lords journey deep into the Amazon in search of discovery. Allende seems to believe (or at least put forth in the narrative) that the indigenous peoples of the rainforest are innocent; which to her seems to mean both 'without a sense of right and wrong (and therefore unable to do wrong)', and better than anyone from civilization. Well, that makes things simpler, don't it. At times awkwardly translated, as when a character is said to be lost in the 'entrails' of a mountain rather than in its 'bowels'. But maybe that's just my oppressively civilized sense of right and wrong popping up again. Curse my fork-wielding ancestors! |
Sexuality, Civil Society, and the State: by Isabel Hull, 411 pages James Donahue 02 February 2003 Through extensive archical work Hull examines marriage and sex laws in Germany from 1500 through 1830 (Reformation through Code Napoleon). She concludes that Christian absolutism was much more inclined to gender equality and sexual tolerance than bourgeois republicanism which relied upon the patriarch and the family unit to ground society. Various themes covered include: the evolution of conceptionilization of sex from animal urge to fundamental right of personhood, the invention of anti-homosexual legislation, the gendered conceptions of citizenry in the 19th-cent. |
Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany (2006) by Isabell Hull, 333 pages James Donahue 05 November 2006 Hull is simply one of the best historians still writing today. In this book she questions why and how the German army committed wartime atrocities in Africa (1907-8) and in Belgium (1914-18). Her thesis is that atrocities were not the result of barbarism or of top-down orders, but rather were the product of overwhelmed troops on the ground, underfunded and underprepared, yet expected to secure absolute order and cooperation from a (naturally) hostile civilian population. |
Roots of Romanticism by Isaiah Berlin, 247 pages James Donahue 13 May 2002 A brief series of lectures on the roots of the international movement in a handful of German thinkers. Berlin always really knows his stuff, but his conservative bias always seems at odds with his interest with "anti-Enlightenment" figures. (And this time I spelled "Isaiah" correctly). |
Vico & Herder: Two Studies in the History of Ideas by Isaiah Berlin, 216 pages James Donahue 25 April 2003 I'm sure we are all tired of my name on the post board, especially myself. Thus I skip usual comments and simply report that this the last book for my semester. In the words of the immortial Homer: WHOO-HOO! |
The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoi's View of History by Isiah Berlin, 81 pages James Donahue 06 May 2002 Explians that confusing postscript from War and Peace; long comparison of Tolstoi and de Maistre. |
Karl Marx: His Life and Environment by Isiah Berlin, 267 pages James Donahue 04 February 2003 The always readable Berlin presents an engaging biography of Marx which focuses on his rise to power within the socialist movement. |
The World of the Shining Prince by Ivan Morris, 289 pages James Donahue 02 March 2004 A history of the unique, effete, and creative imperial court of 10th-century Japan which produced two of the first novels in history. |
Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev, 203 pages Steve Gadd 12 December 1998 |