So much pressure. I just started reading Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse. :groan: I needed a break from absurd otherworldliness, and figured existential crisis and spiritual longing and alienation would be the perfect tonic.

Take your time. If it doesn’t appear for another five years, I can live with that. We’re all just excited about it.

Rereading Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason by Theodor Adorno, his introductory lecture course given in 1959.

Clear and deep and great fun to read, highly recommended for anyone interested in Kant — Jamal

One for the list.... :up:

In the second half of the course, starting around lecture 10, he begins to build an elaborate argument, based on the CPR, against all idealism and all philosophy that seeks a ground of being or knowledge, and for dialectics. It’s rich stuff, though unexpected for an introductory course. It turns out he was doing immanent critique all along.

I’m currently at lecture 15 and eager to see where he goes next. I would honestly be pissed off if someone spoiled the ending for me.

Introductions are great for bringing a lot of material into a very wide focus. I think of Heidegger's Intro to Metaphysics. Adorno is on my list for this year and this seems a great segue back to the CPR which I also want to revisit.

I hear there's a surprise ending. Enjoy!

seems a great segue back to the CPR which I also want to revisit — Pantagruel

I am toying with the idea of doing a CPR reading group here on TPF. I’ve read it once but feel I didn’t really crack it.

That’s a big project though.

I am toying with the idea of doing a CPR reading group here on TPF. I’ve read it once but feel I didn’t really crack it. — Jamal

I know that feeling. I only really felt like Being and Time started to gel on the fifth reading. I will read the CPR at least once more in my life though.

More lectures by Adorno: An Introduction to Dialectics.

Fiscal Reform and its Firm-Level Effects in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, J.E. Anderson.

Tax by design, Sir James Mirrlees.

A better format here might be to encourage people to explain why they are reading that book. What motivated them and what do they want to get out of it. What did they learn that surprises them etc. Because for the life of me, I can't think of any reason why anyone would pick up a book on, let alone write some of these books mentioned (except that they wrote them to publish or perish).

So much pressure. I just started reading Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse. — Noble Dust

:up:

It's quite good, although I think I might have connected with it more emotionally when I was younger. There are some truly profound insights, however. Worthy of it's own philosophy thread without question.

Sometimes it’s obvious. For example, @javi2541997 hardly needs to mention that he’s reading Fiscal Reform and its Firm-Level Effects in Eastern Europe and Central Asia for sheer pleasure.

But seriously, I quite like that people are free to post here however they like, though I guess it would be nice if they said a bit more. Some do. When they don’t it’s cool.

I reread The Glass Bead Game lately. Also great. Both are worthy of threads. I'm sure 'the suicides' in Steppenwolf are part of the reason I like the poison theme. Harry's undecidable status (on the edge of respectability, despite his lethal worldtranscending angst, thanks to his social capital -- and the dividends of capital capital he lives on) reminds me of Hamlet.

Yes, the Hamlet comparison is apt. I would also throw The Stalker (seen in my profile pic), from Tarkovsky's film Stalker in that mix, although he lacks the social capital. Then again, I don't know if anyone has much social capital in that world.

Tarkovsky's film Stalker — Noble Dust

:up:

Haven't seen it, but thx for the reference !

An incredible film. It's based off of the novel Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Similar Hamlet-esque character in the novel, although less likeable but with perhaps more pathos, ironically. I like the film better, but I saw it first, and they are very different from one another.

Sometimes it’s obvious. For example, javi2541997 hardly needs to mention that he’s reading Fiscal Reform and its Firm-Level Effects in Eastern Europe and Central Asia for sheer pleasure. — Jamal

:up:

I will experience more pleasure leafing through that essay than reading Japanese literature, that’s a given.

William Blattner's guide to Being and Time.

Tell me what you think about it please.

Theory of Society, Volume 2
Niklas Luhmann

Volume one became painfully theoretical and abstract about the mid-point. However volume two appears to have a more humanistic orientation.

@javi2541997

I don't know if you saw this:

In new book, Murakami explores walled city and shadows — AP

I don't know if you saw this: — T Clark

Very interesting. Thank you for sharing the link with me. :up:

Just finished The Melancholy of Resistance - it took longer than I would have liked, I lost a bit of focus towards the last 3rd of the book, with the exception of the concluding chapter.

I can only compare it to Satantango, his only other novel I've read. It's hard to pick one, without spoilers, it seems to me that Melancholy is richer in general content than Satantango, and yet, and yet, the way the ending of Satantango went, tuned it from a decent book to a complete masterpiece, essentially focusing on a simple, yet very powerful philosophical idea/literary trick.

I struggled less with Satantango, and I felt it was somewhat more coherent, but again, Melancholy was richer in plurality of ideas... I suppose that Satantango's execution was just too good, so I'd give it the edge.

How does Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming compare with these two works?

I'll probably read one or two easy novels, then go back to a challenging one, then on to Baron - it requires some effort.

Any general thoughts? — Manuel

Melancholy of Resistance and Satantango are my two favorite books of Krasznahorkai, I'm not sure if I could pick my preference between the two. The concluding chapters for both are sublime. Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming was his only work I didn't fully enjoy. I think it was overly long. I do also recommend Seiobo There Below, which is composed of a number of shorter stories, and War & War. I also loved Chasing Homer which incorporated a music element via QR code. Very interesting. If you enjoy film, and how can anyone not, I recommend his collaborative work with director Bela Tarr.

The Persistence of the Old Regime: Europe to the Great War by Arno J. Mayer

Thanks, will check those out. :up:

I just finished Werner Heisenberg's intellectual autobiography, in English titled "Physics and Beyond," in it's original publication in Europe "Der Teil und das Ganze" (The Part and the Whole). @Pierre-Normand suggested it to me. I tentatively recommend it. I had hoped it would have more science like another book I read a while ago "Subtle is the Lord," which is a really good scientific biography of Einstein.

Heisenberg's book, written in the early 1970s, is told mostly as a series of conversations with his contemporaries starting when he was starting college in 1919 through the end of the 1950s. The recollections are very detailed. He must have kept a journal. I wonder also whether or not they were more dramatizations than memories. He knew everyone in physics in Germany during that period - Pauli, Hahn, Planck, Schrodinger, Bohr, and many others who I wasn't familiar with. He met Einstein. Some of this recollections, especially those during the war, seemed as if they might be self-serving.

The part I found most interesting was the timeline of discoveries in quantum mechanics and how each affected the scientific community. His explanation of the discovery of nuclear fission as a sustainable reaction with possible uses for energy generation and weapons was probably the most interesting part, along with his explanation why wartime Germany never put much effort into nuclear weapons.

Although thin on science, the book is very heavy on philosophy of science. Those sections were actually pretty interesting, especially the fact that Heisenberg and his colleagues were having the same kinds of discussions of truth and knowledge we have here on the forum.

All in all, pretty good but not enough science. And short, which makes up for some of the shortcomings.

Currently reading Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. Amazing so far.

Incidentally, I plan to read Jim Gauer's Novel Explosives for a third time, it really is a masterpiece in fiction, has plenty of philosophy, amazing prose, countless ideas and is actually fun to read. But it is also challenging.

@180 Proof@Jamal

I think both of you will most surely enjoy Novel Explosives, if you are ever in a mood for philosophical, albeit somewhat challenging fiction, I think you cannot go wrong with it. I am under obligation to make propaganda for it, because it's not well known...

Looks interesting :up: