Kevin's Watch

Cord Hurn wrote:Currently reading A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, by Mark Twain.

Read it at summer camp one year.

I was that kid.

Loved it.

Read Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None that same summer.

+JMJ+

Avatar wrote:Eh...I don't know if Kant suffers particularly in translation, (my German is nowhere near good enough to read the original), but I always found him nearly as tedious as Michel Foucault (in translation).

I've never studied Foucault specifically, so I'll hafta take yer word on dat.

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Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals • On a Supposed Right to Lie because of Philanthropic Concerns by Immanuel Kant

+JMJ+

Critique of Practical Reason by Immanuel Kant (trans. Werner Pluhar)

+JMJ+

Critique of Judgment by Immanuel Kant (trans. Werner Pluhar)

Currently I'm reading The Limits Of Capital by David Harvey.

Just finished Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, and back to Cormac McCarthy, who I have read most of his books twice-ish by now. Currently back on the Outer Dark; the regional dialogue is freakishly well observed.

+JMJ+

Rereading:
Kant's Critical Philosophy: The Doctrine of the Faculties by Gilles Deleuze

Dracula - Bram Stoker

Re-reading

+JMJ+

Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason by Immanuel Kant (trans. Werner Pluhar)

+JMJ+

Introductions to the 'Wissenschaftslehre' • Other Writings (1797-1800) by J.G. Fichte

+JMJ+

System of Transcendental Idealism (1800) by F.W.J. Schelling

+JMJ+

Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom by F.W.J. Schelling

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_the_Spy

Julie git it for me for Christmas

Read two mysteries, the first one called No Faith In Justice, by Tom Barkwell. It was a tense military murder mystery. Finishing up reading Linda Holt Carrell's Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief: A Magpie Mystery. It's been a wryly humorous story about a missing person, followed by a missing suspect, and the uncovering of 60-year old scandal. Now, I'm ready to go back to fantasy.

+JMJ+

The Phenomenology of Spirit by G.W.F Hegel (tr. Miller)

My first readings as a child were (aside from the really early 'Noddy' level stuff) almost exclusively the works of Enid Blyton. I started with the Five Find-Outers, then progressed to the Secret Seven, the Ring-O-Bells series and culminated with the Mountain of Adventure series which were darker in tone and a bit more adult (if you like). There were some of the smaller series in-between, but in total her writings gave me a love of reading that has stayed with me (and served me well) throughout my entire life. I owe her a debt of gratitude that I could never repay for this early service to my intellectual development.

She was not regarded as high grade reading, even as I was devouring her books (I remember my old headmaster pulling a copy of her book from my hands, throwing it on the table in disgust and telling me to "grow up and read something worth reading" - I was about 9 y.o. at the time). But for me, I was never happier than when I went out on a Saturday morning with my half-crown pocket money, found a new Enid Blyton book that I hadn't read, and would then return home to my bedroom and read the thing in one swallow.

The other day I was rooting around in my local National Trust bookshop (the second hand one where everything costs a quid) and found a copy of one of the 'Adventure' series - the Island of, to be exact. It had a modern cover but hey, I was overcome by a wave of nostalgia and going to the till, sprung my nicker for it.

Later that night, upon opening the book and begining to read, it became rapidly apparent that what I held was not an Enid Blyton book, but a bowlderised version in which anything that could be considered not 'pc' to the modern mindset had been suitably adjusted. It was okay, but sort of like vegetables boiled without the seasoning. The book, if I remember correctly, in it's first manifestation had a colored chauffeur-cum-handyman, who shadowed the four with a slightly creepy perseverance that gave the reading a really rather chilling effect. He was gone, to be replaced by a nondescript character who had none of the character or menace of the original.

I am fully aware of the considerations that make this necessary in today's world; the stereotypings and prejudices of books such as Blyton's no doubt have much to answer for (had we been old enough to be introduced to sexuality and gender alignment in her books, no doubt these prejudices would also be blamable on her writings, as she would no doubt have reflected the views of the day as she saw them) but I can't help feeling that for all this something has been lost.

My introduction to the magical world of the imagination came directly and pleasurably from this woman. Thanks to her, reading for me has never been a chore. Coming into contact with the youth of today for most of whom reading is anathema if it is more than 27 syllables (or is it letters) long, I don't wonder if the books shouldn't have been left in their original form, or just abandoned altogether. At least Rowling has stepped into the gap to some degree, but one wonders what will happen when the sensibility censors get to work on her books at some point in the (no doubt near) future.

LOL, yeah, I read a lot of Blyton back in the day, not to mention the Hardy Boys and Willard Price etc.

I'm really not a fan of the whole retcon movement either. I think it's better to have a discussion about things that may be insensitive / offensive in a modern context rather than try to erase them from history.

(And of course JK is in poor odour now thanks to some transphobic remarks. )

--A

Yes, I haven't really followed that debate Av. I did think that it was a bit sad that recently she wasn't invited to some kind of anniversary do (of the films I believe) to which Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson et al all went along. Seems a bit churlish to exclude the woman who started it all going to me, but hey- what do I know.

I'm going through a spell of novel reading. Been into R S Salvatore's series that introduces his character, the dark elf Drizzt and really enjoyed it.

Just finished the Dracula sequel by JS Barnes, Dracula's Child, which started out in fine form, but disapointingly simply ran out of puff as it progressed until by the end I was finishing it just to say I'd finished it. Shame. The story just got away from the author and ran into silly-land.

I've got a thriller called The Sanatorium by Saran Pearce to start - a group of individuals trapped in an ex-sanatorium/hotel conversion by bad weather with people mysteriously going missing. Pretty rote stuff but might be a diversion for a while.

Currently reading A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens. Once I got used to Dickens' style of writing. I found myself enjoying it, able to easily envision many of the characters. With only seven more chapters to go, it's getting more tense, as all the main characters are swept up in the violent currents of the French Revolution. Some so-named classics of literature can bore me; this book certainly doesn't.