14. The Unnamable - Samuel Beckett

Let me introduce this book with the following.

I should mention before going any further, any further on, that I say aporia without knowing what it means. Can one be ephectic otherwise than unawares? I don't know. With the yeses and noes it is different, they will come back to me as I go along and now, like a bird, to shit on them all without exception. The fact would seem to be, if in my situation one may speak of facts, not only that I shall have to speak of things of which I cannot speak, but also, which is even more interesting, but also that I, which is if possible even more interesting, that I shall have to, I forget, no matter.

I think this quote from the book leads nicely into what "The Unnamable" was for me. Samuel Beckett is the man. The entire book is an aporia.

How about this.

I add this, to be on the safe side. These things I say, and shall say, if I can, are no longer, or are not yet, or never were, or never will be, or if they were, if they are, if they will be, were not here, are not here, will not be here, but elsewhere. But I am here. So I am obliged to add this. I who am here, who cannot speak, cannot think, and who must speak, and therefore perhaps think a little, cannot in relation only to me who am here, to here where I am, but can a little, sufficiently, I don't know how, unimportant, in relation to me who was elsewhere, who shall be elsewhere, and to those places where I was, where I shall be.

Or this.

But my good-will at certain moments is such, and my longing to have floundered however briefly, however feebly, in the great life torrent streaming from the earliest protozoa to the very latest humans, that I, no, parenthesis unfinished. I'll begin again. My family.

Juicy.

13. Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut

This is a brilliant book. I'm getting suspicious about all these amazing books I'm reading. Perhaps they're not and I simply have no taste, or suffer from some literary affliction akin to memory confabulation.

Regardless - this book seethes with wit and ardour and hopelessly incisive humour.

I would like to quote the highlights, but it'd be like showing the highlights of world record breaking 100m sprint. I'd have to show the whole thing.

Here's a small tasting plate though:

'Did that really happen? said Maggie White. She was a dull person, but a sensational invitation to make babies. Men looked at her and wanted to fill her up with babies right away. She hadn't even had one baby yet. She used birth control.

'Of course it happened,' Trout told her. 'If I wrote something that hadn't really happened, and I tried to sell it, I could go to jail. That's fraud.'

Maggie believed him. 'I'd never thought about that before.'

'Think about it now'.

Or

Billy told her what had happened to the buildings that used to form cliffs around the stockyards. They had collapsed. Their wood had been consumed, and their stones had crashed down, had tumbled against one another until they locked at last in low and graceful curves.

'It was like the moon', said Billy Pilgrim.

Or

Listen - on the tenth night the peg was pulled out of the hasp on Billy's boxcar door, and the door was opened. Billy Pilgrim was lying at an angle on the corner-brace, self-crucified, holding himself there with a blue and ivory claw hooked over the sill of the ventilator. Billy coughed when the door was opened, and when he coughed he shit thin gruel. This was in accordance with the Third Law of Motion according to Sir Isaac Newton. This law tells us that for every action there is a reaction which is equal and opposite in direction.

This can be useful in rocketry.

Or

Billy left his room, went down the slow elevator, walked over to Times Square, looked into the window of a tawdry bookstore. In the window were hundreds of books about fucking and buggery and murder, and a street guide to New York City, and a model of the Statue of Liberty with a thermometer on it. Also in the window, speckled with soot and fly shit, were four paperback novels by Billy's friend, Kilgore Trout.

The news of the day, meanwhile, was being written in a ribbon of lights on a building to Billy's back. The window reflected the news. It was about power and sports and anger and death. So it goes.

Billy went into the bookstore.

Very stylish. Maybe too clever or preachy? Anyway, everyone should read this. Takes less than a day.

12. Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics - Immanuel Kant

I've started his Big Bastard of a Book, but this was great. Gave me some solid background on his ideas and theories before trying to excavate deeper.

11. Studies in Pessimism - Arthur Schopenhauer

9. Confessions of a Philosopher - Bryan Magee

Brilliant. Inquisitive. Passionate. It may turn out that this book has singlehandedly reignited my interest in philosophy. How do I explain the impact this book has had on me?

Throughout "Confessions of a Philosopher", Bryan Magee shows the reader that philosophy is very much a living and breathing activity devoted to the understanding of why we are here, and what it all means. From the beginning of the book, which is autobiographical in method (not message), he shows how he has struggled all his life with deep philosophical questions. He takes the reader from his childhood through to the time of writing (around 1997), and gives them an overview of how he has ceaselessly and tirelessly tried to pursue an understanding for what he calls the big philosophical problems. In the process we learn much about his life and his time spent studying history and philosophy at Oxford and Yale.

The stories he tells about his personal relationships with some of modern philosophy's big names, Karl Popper, Bertrand Russell, and his interaction with philosophers residing in England at the time is fascinating. There is something deeply inspiring about hearing how Karl Popper would reason or argue on a particular topic in his study with Magee. That kind of first person insight is thrilling. I can't understate how exciting it is to hear about the greats wrestling with the really big questions.

As someone with a science background it came as quite a shock to realise that I am essentially a modern day physicalist, materialist, realist and perhaps even to some extent a logical positivist/empiricist. Magee's discussion of arguments from Kant, Popper and Schopenhauer, and the way he illuminated their logical and rational progression has made me realise for the first time that perhaps science can't explain everything. I've studied over 3 years of physics and mathematics at university and more recently another 4 years of computer science, and I can safely say that this one book has made me start questioning my perspective on all the knowledge and understanding I've taken away from those studies. I realise that I might sound like a crackpot, and perhaps I am, but I'm trying to show how fundamentally challenging his arguments are. Of course I was familiar (and almost comfortable perhaps) with the idea that science doesn't provide pure or perfect truths but theories that are merely supported by huge amounts of evidence, however I've never been presented with good arguments for believing that there is a scope and limit to the way in which science can enlighten us about our universe and our position in it. It's a truly deep and "earth-shaking" situation for me to contemplate. It's incredibly exciting too. These are the kinds of insights I've pulled out of this book.

Magee also places a great emphasis on art as something which brings us closer to these questions (and potential avenues for answers) than perhaps anything else. His is a refreshingly whole-minded outlook in that regard. He agrees that he doesn't believe he can contribute much on this front, but makes some interesting points about the place of artistic creation and appreciation in our understanding of who we are are human beings and where we fit in our world.

I have a renewed respect for genuine philosophers who are doing everything they can to try and understand these things. Magee is at pains throughout this book to point out that philosophy isn't about the mental gymnastics of certain philosophical methods as a means to an end (such as analytic philosophy or linguistic analysis which he equates with the Oxford traditon of the time), but that real philosophy is rooted in experience and a deep and inviolate desire to understand it. I think he's right.

All in all, an inspirational, intellectually honest, humble and well written story. For me it might just turn out to be life changing.

8. Kuhn vs. Popper - Steven Fuller

This was a bit of random pickup. I think I was desperate to get into something vaguely "philosophical", and I don't know much about either Popper or Kuhn, so the idea was to get an interesting and thoughtful introduction to both of them. Unfortunately I'm not sure I got that with Steve Fuller's book - "Kuhn vs. Popper". Fuller is a sociologist who argues that creationism should be given a better chance against the "scientific dogmatism" he believes has become more popular. Uh huh. Why didn't I research him and this book before I bought it. I'm normally so good like that.

Anyway, he made some interesting points about Kuhn getting it all wrong and Popper being the guiding light despite the fact that Kuhn's critique of the scientific method is what he believes has been adopted in liberal intellectual circles. He may be right, but I have to say Kuhn's "paradigm shift" and "culturally specific" take on science isn't what I was taught at university. Admittedly I studied science in the Science rather than Arts faculty, but I'm not sure where that background to science is taught or consumed seriously.

I'll add more to this post after I gather my thoughts about this book. I have a niggling feeling it's valuable I just can't put my finger on it.

7. Malone Dies - Samuel Beckett

I absolutely loved "Malone Dies". It's been a while since I read "Molloy", and I'd almost forgotten what a genius Samuel Beckett is. The whole story seem quite rambling, and some people say there's barely a thread of storyline there, but I disagree. It was quite clear what was happening most of the time. In fact it was perhaps even more vivid for the extra care needed to read the book.

Some favourite quotes:

For his ear, which is on the same plane as the cheek or nearly, was glued to the earth in a way it seldom is in wet weather, and he could hear the kind of distant roar of the earth drinking and the sighing of soaked bowed grasses. The idea of punishment came to his mind, addicted it is true to that chimera and probably impressed by the posture of the body and the fingers clenched as though in torment. And without knowing exactly what his sin was he felt full well that living was not a sufficient atonement for it or that this atonement was in itself a sin, calling for more atonement, and so on, as if there could be anything but life, for the living.

There sprang up gradually between them a kind of intimacy which, at a given moment, led them to lie together and copulate as best they could. For given their age and scant experience of carnal love, it was only natural they should not succeed, at the first shot, in giving each other the impression they were made for each other. The spectacle was then offered of Macmann trying to bundle his sex into his partner's like a pillow into a pillow-slip, folding it in two and stuffing it in with his fingers. But far from losing heart they warmed to their work. And though both were completely impotent they finally succeeded, summoning to their aid all the resources of the skin, the mucus and the imagination, in striking from their dry and feeble clips a kind of sombre gratification.

One day, just as Macmann was getting used to being loved, though without as yet responding as he was subsequently to do, he thrust Moll's face away from his on the pretext of examining her ear-rings. But as she made to return to the charge he checked her again with the first words that came into his head, namely, Why two Christs?, implying that in his opinion one was more than sufficient. To which she made the absurd reply, Why two ears? But she obtained his forgiveness a moment later, saying, with a smile (she smiled at the least thing), Besides they are the thieves, Christ is in my mouth. Then parting her jaws and pulling down her blobber-lip she discovered, breaking with its solitary fang the monotony of the gums, a long yellow canine bared to the roots and carved, with the drill probably , to represent the celebrated sacrifice. With the forefinger of her free hand she fingered it. It's loose, she said, one of these fine mornings I'll wake up and find I've swallowed it, perhaps I should have it out. She let go her lip, which sprang back into place with a smack. This incident made a strong impression on Macmann and Moll rose with a bound in his affections.

Very fine book. Can't wait to read "The Unnamable". Apparently it's even more experimental :O