The summer brain drain, intellectual inertia, and Gossip Girl

I have lost interest / motivation to read most, if not all, of the books on the list I posted in May.

And this is one of many reasons I've decided I'm not quite ready for seminary yet. Please, no more compulsory reading and writing for a year. It will be nice to read and write because I want to, not because I have to. So I'll be in Tulsa for this year.

I've read books at Borders, for entertainment, that are probably not worth talking or writing about, in the sense that they are unlikely ever to be considered part of the canon of great books worth studying. (Well, perhaps they will be of academic interest 50 years from now, as a snapshot of the turn-of-the-century cultural moment. And they are definitely "flarfable.")

I had first read Gossip Girl when I was 16, around when it first came out (and when I was still legitimately part of the target audience). I picked it up again this summer because I wanted something mindless to replace television, and I certainly succeeded. It glorifies the lifestyle of girls attending private school in New York City, whose wealthy parents give them limitless credit cards and almost no restrictions or supervision. (Apparently the author either was one of these girls, or went to school with them.) This glamorous life revolves around endless parties, and the bitchily condescending prose is peppered with enough references to designer clothes to sound quite ridiculous. The anonymous Gossip Girl is a character in the series who provides a blog update every couple of chapters, referencing the other characters.

I can't give a satisfactory explanation for why I kept reading, but it was entertaining. Whatever it is, it must be the same reason that reality TV shows are so popular.

It was interesting because there are really people who are like that, and because having a lot of money doesn't make them happy. It is a hollow thing they take for granted, even while they elevate it to one of the most essential elements of their identity. In the midst of all this material wealth, there is still great relational poverty-- the parental neglect that I mentioned before makes friends and peers (and their approval) even more important. The self-absorbed, wealthy parents are always going off to operas, and they have a tacit agreement with their children: you can do and have whatever you want, as long as you don't embarrass us. The luxury suite penthouses are stocked with lots of liquor to fuel the endless parties, and condoms, just in case.

After a while, I began to feel sorry for them, and I wanted them to grow up.

At the center of the series is two girls and a guy -- a formula that permeates pop culture, dating back at least to Archie comics, and probably further. In case you don't recognize it, it is a best friend / love triangle, in which both girls are in love with the noncommital guy, who is generally "loves" them both. Since none of you are ever going to read these, I'll spoil the ending: the guy finally decides to go sailing around the world for a year, instead of choosing a serious relationship with one of his beautiful friends. This is the first decision he makes as a man, after drifting through life in a haze of constant pot smoke since eighth grade, playing lacrosse, hooking up with any of the constantly available girls he wanted (in addition to the main two), and getting mediocre grades.

The ending gives a false sense that they are going to grow up and be okay, until you remember their self-absorbed, shallow parents, and realize that this is most likely their future. How depressing.

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After I finished reading this series, I dug back into my treasure trove of books from my 20th century American lit class. I found two books there that bear some surface similarities to Gossip Girl, but are considered intellectual: Edith Wharton's House of Mirth and Mary McCartney's The Group.

Like Gossip Girl, these are about young women in New York high society. The Group follows the lives of eight popular girls graduating from Vassar between the world wars, and it seems like most of the chapters are set in New York. According to the accolades printed on the back, it is a great social history. Indeed, it seems thoroughly researched, saturated with authentic-sounding references to politics, food, businesses, slang, cultural trends, and everything else of the time. After my re-reading of it, I came away with a fierce hatred of one of the characters' husbands, which, for me, distinguishes it as a great book. Not many books provoke strong emotions in me; my reaction is usually, "Hm, that's interesting."

House of Mirth is a tragedy about a young woman, bred for high society, whose downfall results from conflicting and irreconcilable circumstances and personal inclinations. She is shallow and wants money to maintain her lifestyle, but not shallow enough to marry for money. She is too flighty to focus on a viable course of action (marry for money at the sacrifice of dignity, or uphold dignity and deal with the dinginess of a cheap apartment and membership in the working class). Her mood, outlook on life, and even her entire worldview vary in direct correlation with her physical surroundings. Luxury eases her into ignoring her problems and feeling good, while dinginess, a quality her mother taught her to fear and despise, reminds her of her bleak life situation and checkbook balance. Reading about her downfall made me feel panicky, even though I had read it before, because I realize that I, too, could be this foolish and irrational (although in somewhat different ways). What if I mess up my life with indecision?

The heroine's friends were never truly caring. Society valued a person solely according to his or her money and amusing / impressive qualities. I'd like to think that they might have helped her more than they did, if she had asked, and that her downfall really accelerated when she cut herself off from them, but I dare not contradict the very knowledgeable author. Before marriage, she was Edith Jones, an influential family in New York we still remember in our colloquial phrase, "keeping up with the Joneses."

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I wish I could finish this small study by taking a trip to New York. Maybe I can do it by next spring. Who wants to come with me?

The Life of Henry George

A book that I read this summer that is not on my initial reading list is a biography of American social thinker Henry George. The man's son, Henry George Jr, wrote it in 1904 and dedicated it "to all who strive for the reign of justice."

Henry George’s life was more varied and adventurous than you might expect of a nineteenth-century self-taught economist. When he was young he voyaged to Australia and India. A few years later he sailed to California to make his fortune. He never “struck it rich,” but he did work as a typesetter, elope with a Catholic girl from Australia, and eventually get mixed up in politics.

It is an engaging story, and it actually helps the reader understand why Henry George developed his ideas. Living in California for much of his life, Henry George watched land values skyrocket due to speculation. He saw “robber barons” become fabulously wealthy with the help of land grants and government subsidies. At the same time, it was becoming more difficult for a common laborer to make a living. It is not suprising that Henry George advocated abolishing taxes on labor and on capital and replacing them with a tax on land’s unimproved value. I suspect that his arguments are not quite as persuasive as they probably were in Henry George's day.

But Henry George was convinced that he had discovered a timeless truth. He was confident that this truth must eventually prevail. And when it did prevail, he was sure that it would end inequality, poverty, and misery. This was Henry George’s gospel, and he preached it with tireless zeal.

On Free Choice of the Will, by Augustine

The title of this book is somewhat misleading, as it does not address the issue of free will in the sense of free will versus predestination. Rather, it is about the way in which human beings will to sin and therefore render themselves worthy of punishment. It is a dialogue which begins with the question "Please tell me: isn't God the cause of all evil?" asked of Augustine by his companion Evodius. They determine that the will is a good that is given by God, that is misused in the doing of evil. Therefore God is not the cause of evil, but the cause of the will. The entire point of the book, then, is that God is the source of all that which is good, and of nothing that is truly evil. It was written against the Manichees, a sect Augustine was quite opposed to and used to belong to, and Augustine later directed it against the Pelagians, after they arose and tried to use it to support their views.

There are several other good points in the book, such as the distinction between those things possessing existence, possessing life, and possessing reason, which is a helpful and neat classification. Perhaps the best point outside of the main theme is the description of the way in which those things which are unchanging are preferable to those which are mutable for procuring happiness. This leads to the conclusion that dependency on material objects for happiness when we may depend on God is incorrect and foolish, something that is seldom, if ever, brought up in our comfortable heavily industrialized society.

As a side note, Rachel, I recall that your brother was intending to do some philosophy reading, this would be a good book for him to take a look at, in my opinion.

Puck of Pook's Hill

While I was in St. Andrew's with Nicole and Alyson, we went to a used bookstore where I found two very old books by Rudyard Kipling, Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies. I'm fairly sure that they're out of print now, so I was delighted to have come across them.

They're historical fiction meant for children. Two children living in "modern" England meet Puck, who then introduces them to people from moments in England's past so that the book becomes a sort of novel about British history in very simplified form. They're well-written, of course, since it is Kipling, and each chapter has a ballad before it.

While I was flying back on Tuesday, I read Puck of Pook's Hill. I read both books way back in highschool, and they still make for a charming light read.

The Theory of Moral Sentiments

This book by Adam Smith is the one he was actually known for during his lifetime, rather than the Wealth of Nations. The book is basically a system of morality based upon the feelings of individuals, as corrected by reason. Smith outlines the source of moral sentiments about the feelings and virtues of others as the sympathy that individuals have with the feelings of others. Hence, if someone throws a rotten pomegranate at me, then, sympathizing with my resentment for that action, others will feel that it is just for that person to be rebuked or punished, if it is done in proportion to the action taken. Thus most would consent to the person being ticketed, but would not sympathize with a demand on my part to have the offender beheaded, and would consider such to be a symptom of vice. Further, each individual may gauge their own sentiments using the 'impartial observer in their own breast' to paraphrase, thereby avoiding excess or deficiency in feeling.

Smith includes a summary of various other systems of morality and distinguishes his system from them, dividing them into systems based on propriety, such as those of Aristotle and Plato as well as Stoicism, systems based on selfish virtue (prudence), such as Epicureanism, and those based on benevolence, such as Neo-Platonism. This was interesting in that I had formerly heard of Smith being a Stoic, but he emphatically denies this claim himself, criticizing this philosophical school as being inhumane in its lack of emotion. Also, it appears that he may have misunderstood Epicureanism, in that he states that Epicureans would seek office for the comforts of it, whereas what I have read of them seems to indicate that they would regard this as a source of anxiety, which would be contrary to their philosophy. However, this does not really detract from his overall point.

This book is extremely edifying but very long and the writing style is convoluted. The only books I have read that are more difficult to read are by Edmund Burke and possibly John Locke, and the joke I normally tell about Burke's style is that his sentences are longer than his paragraphs. So, if you can handle the sheer volume of subordinate clauses, then I recommend this book very strongly.

Little Dorrit

This is one of Dickens’ “dark novels,” the preface of my edition informs me. One of its themes is captivity: the first chapter introduces the reader to two prisoners in Marseilles; we later meet good-hearted Mr. and Mrs. Meagles waiting to be taken out of quarantine; and Our Heroine Little Dorrit was born and raised in a debtor’s prison. Each of these characters, and many more, come to play an important part in a plot so intricate that it is positively... Dickensian. Typical of Dickens, too, are the book’s castigation of social ills (although in this case, government bureaucracy is a principle target), the quick changes in mood from heart-wringing pathos to satirical comedy, the dramatic changes of fortunes of the protagonists, and the distinctiveness of the characters.

All of this I expected. What surprised me was that Dickens – long before Alan Greenspan spoke of “irrational exuberance” or John Maynard Keynes discussed “animal spirits” – created an insightful description of a speculative financial boom and bust. Given the blame that has been cast on today’s macroeconomic and financial models for our current economic woes, the plight of Mr. Pancks seemed startlingly relevant:

'It was my misfortune to lead him into a ruinous investment.' (Mr Pancks still clung to that word, and never said speculation.) 'Though I can prove by figures,' added Mr Pancks, with an anxious countenance, 'that it ought to have been a good investment. I have gone over it since it failed, every day of my life, and it comes out—regarded as a question of figures—triumphant.' ...These incontrovertible figures had been the occupation of every moment of his leisure since he had lost his money, and were destined to afford him consolation to the end of his days.

Is anyone else a huge fan of Charles Dickens? Reading Little Dorrit reminded me why I love his books.

Sophie's World

One of my greatest fears is running out of reading material on a trip, which I may be in danger of doing. Today I finished Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. Since I had read it before, the ending wasn't much of a surprise.

The book basically gives a series of philosophy lessons framed by a novel about two teenage girls. The worldviews of the philosophies, from Plato onward, are played out in the plot of the novel. Thus, as the philosophy course approaches contemporary times, the novel becomes increasingly strange, even surreal. The counterpoint between philosophy lessons and the novel itself would take a lot of time to appreciate fully.

Though the book is well-written, Gaarder's worldview presents difficulties for a Christian reader. He's definitely feminist, and emphasizes environmental concerns, especially at the end. Though he is careful not to subscribe to any one philosophy, the novel definitely takes postmodern twists toward the end. Perhaps Gaarder's very carefulness about not supporting any particular philosophy is a symbol of the postmodern age.