Book Notes: "The Myth of Sisyphus" by Albert Camus

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Camus gives words and thoughts and theories and literary examples to my own primitive discoveries about work and suicide. I remember waking one morning, at age 19, and thinking: "If this is all my life will ever be, then today I must either change it or end it". If I had to roll that rock up the hill one more time then that was it for me. I don't write this gratuitously or intend to treat suicide glibly, but in the context of Camus' "philosophical suicide", my experience of the absurd has informed much of my philosophy for living. I have often thought that if God does not exist, then there is no point in living. Camus twists around varieties of my thoughts, but he does so referring particularly to Nietzsche (that most famous of God's "assassins") and antitheses of my understanding. This is a short book and it seems to be an abridged version of a much larger work. Nevertheless, it is sufficient to point out a number of my reading deficits. This may require a second reading once I complete Kafka's The Castle, and much of Nietzsche. Camus broaches many topics that tend to be completely avoided by almost any person to whom I have ever spoken. It would seem that once again Continental philosophers have a monopoly on saying what everyone is thinking but were too afraid to say. Two quotes resonated with me:

On the futility of suicide, from p. 6:

I have heard of an emulator of Peregrinos, a post-war writer who, after having finished his first book, committed suicide to attract attention to his work. Attention was in fact attracted, but the book was judged no good.

And on death as a work in progress, from p. 111:

If something brings creation to an end, it is not the victorious and illusory cry of the blinded artist: 'I have said everything', but the death of the creator which closes his experience and the book of his genius.

View all my reviews

Book Notes: "The Authentic Swing: Notes From the Writing of a First Novel" by Steven Pressfield

The Authentic Swing: Notes From the Writing of a First Novel by Steven Pressfield

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In this work, what might be called a pamphlet, Steven Pressfield tells the story of how he wrote The Legend of Bagger Vance: A Novel of Golf and the Game of Life. The work is interesting on a number of levels. First, it explains, in some detail, how Pressfield conceived of Bagger Vance and recreated the Hindu scriptural epic, Bhagavad-Gita. The protagonist, Rannulph Junuh, is also based on a character in the Hindu text, Arjuna (recreated as R. Junuh). Second, the work tells the story of Pressfield's love of golf, and his idea about "the authentic swing", something "remembered" rather than learnt, and recalling Saint-Exupéry (de) Antoine:

Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

This process of stripping oneself away to reveal the true self recalls James Allen and Kempis Thomas, but Pressfield presents this in an accessible form. Third, the work provides guidance for writers, specifically of fiction novels, but the process can apply equally to any style of writing. While the work is short, and there are entire pages devoted to only one short paragraph (making the book thicker than it need be), there is much below the surface of the iceberg that can be easily missed if this is the only work of Pressfield's one has read. It pays to have read Aristotle and the other aforementioned authors, not because one needs to to understand Pressfield, but because Pressfield brings it all together like a folk song. Read James Allen and then Kempis Thomas and one will see the connection. It is not the same, not just copied, but enlivened. That is what makes this pamphlet, and, indeed, all of Pressfield's shorter works, worthwhile.

View all my reviews

Book Notes: "Eva Luna" by Isabel Allende

Eva Luna by Isabel Allende

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The title, the name of the protagonist, belies the intricate web of various stories woven into one coherent piece. The style is known as magical realism. I can hear one of my favourite professors now: "You are too discursive, my son, you need to focus on one thing and unpack it sufficiently". Eva Luna covers religion, politics, gender-bender, sexuality, morality, revolution, spiritualism, the old and the new, multiculturalism, and "indigenous affairs", and so on, yet still manages to bring together a gripping story. Not what I expected but thoroughly enjoyable. And proof that one can be discursive if the weaver is skillful.

View all my reviews