Alienation (II) The reading life expresses a pre-existing world, organizing it temporarily into language, bringing its contours and challenges to conscious shape. Take a listen to Robert Stone, from “Dog Soldiers” (1974): “In the course of being fragmentation-bombed by the South Vietnamese Air Force, Converse…
Alienation (I) alienate (al’yen-at’, a’li-en-at), v.t. 1. to transfer the ownership of (property) to another, 2. to estrange; make unfriendly; as, his behavior alienated his friends. 3. to cause a transference of (affection). alienation (al’yen-a’shen, a’li-en-en-shen). n. (M.E., OFr.; L. alienation, separation, aversion, aberration (of…
Goldberg, Michelle. The Goddess Pose: The Audacious Life of Indra Devi, the Woman Who Helped Bring Yoga to the West, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2015 (322pp.$26.95) Now that yoga is the province of slick promotions, self-indulgence, and the sweat-box mentality of exercise studios, it…
“More help with the sorrows of the digital age…” Holmes, Jamie. Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing, Crown Publishers, New York, 2015 (322pp.$27) “It is time for writers to admit that nothing in this world makes sense,” Chekhov wrote to a friend. “Only fools…
Wulf, Andrea. The Invention of Nature: Alexander Von Humboldt’s New World, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2015 (473pp.$30). These days the name Alexander Von Humboldt resists recognition. But in his time (the late 18th and early 19th centuries), he was a world celebrity, an acknowledged…
There are screen zombies everywhere. What to do? Goldstein, Rebecca. Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away. Pantheon Books, Random House, New York (435pp. $29.95) Students of philosophy certainly know the old chestnut that “all of Western philosophy is a series of footnotes…
“We’ve been speaking in the bibliography of distraction and focus–And the sorrows of the digital age…” Rosen, Larry D. iDisorder: Understanding Our Obsession with Technology and Overcoming its Hold on Us. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2012 (256pp.$25) No matter where we go—to a restaurant,…
Tackett, Timothy. The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution, The Belknap Press, Harvard University, Cambridge MA and London, 2015 (463pp.$35) The scramble by historians and to unscramble the “meaning” of terror in the French revolution commenced as soon as heads began to roll….
Reich, Robert B. Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2015 (279pp.$26.95) Though politicians seeking to cash in on the slogans and shibboleths surrounding immigration, abortion, and militant nationalism often obfuscate our country’s ills, the reality is otherwise. For…
Didion, Joan. Blue Nights, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2011 (188pp.$25) One of our finest, quintessentially American writers, Joan Didion, is the author of fiver novels and eight works of nonfiction. The nonfiction has been collected as “We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live”…