the Lord of the Rings: book one

This book (which I've read before recently, hence that link simply going to my earlier post about it) I've been re-experiencing in audio form, thanks to YouTuber Tolkien Trash, who is committed to the admirable & entertaining work of reading out the whole trilogy a chapter a week on live-stream. You can check out her back-catalogue here if you want to listen along with me and her other followers. She has a soothing yet stimulating voice for reading & the occasional asides to the chat (or just because she's laughing about something in the text) add a funny level of intimate performativity to the streams.

Perpetual Peace

This book (available from that link as a .pdf online for free) is a 1794* essay by Immanuel Kant on the possibility of ending war between sovereign nations. He basically argues that we need to seek to establish an international federation of co-dependent nations under a singular representative state. Pretty modern ideas for the 18th-century, but then, this is Kant we're talking about. His arguments are largely pragmatic and don't veer too much into philosophy** and should be generally digestible by a majority of readers. As stated repeatedly throughout the text, this is NOT a manifesto - I don't think Kant believed that any single state of policy would be able to even kickstart the move towards a perfectly peaceable world - but by holding out these plausibilities as ideals, he makes a very convincing case that establishing such a world is not beyond possibility even within a cynical grasp of reality, and so the main thrust of this test stands on its own two feet. Recommended reading for anyone whom this theme strikes curiosity into, but if you somehow happen to be a person of international political influence who reads this blog, I specifically implore you to read this and think of how Kantian your rationality as regards your work is.

* And the translation, by one M. Campbell Smith, was published in 1903 - so even the Very Lengthy (as in, longer than the translated text it was the introduction to) Introduction recounting the history of ideas around the core topic of this essay came too early to be able to speak of anything regarding such institutions as NATO, or the EU, or UN even, which might have quite substantively reshaped the commentary on the ideas herein.

** Except for the pair of appendices, where he first considers the disagreements between proper moral ethics and political reality, and then secondly looks at the singular overlap point between proper moral ethics and political reality - that being the idea of a public right.

the Other Wind

This book is the sixth and last in Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea series (and yes, I know, I've skipped the fifth one, Tales of Earthsea, but I don't have it yet - it's ordered and will be lumped up on here once I've read it, but my reflections on the series as a whole will be reserved for that one). In this instalment we follow Alder, a young sorcerer of mending from the island of Taon, who keeps having dreams in which his dead wife reaches out to him from the realms of those who have passed over the wall on the hill which separates the living from the not. He is drawn to Gont to question the ex-Archmage Ged about this, but Ged, now powerless but still wise, shunts Alder off to the capital island Havnor to consult with Tenar and Tehanu, who are over there to visit the recently installed king Lebannen (aka Arren from the third one). Tenar and Tehanu, as well as a number of other wizards from Roke who happened to be on Havnor at the time, and in short order also a dragon who can take the form of a woman called Irian, all find Alder's plight deeply troubling, the experienced mages taking it as a sign of a worsening in the balance that Ged had tried so hard fifteen years earlier to heal. Taking along with them a princess from the Kargad Lands who has been sent as a gifted bride to Lebannen, all concerned persons make their way to Roke, to hold council between humans and dragons in the Immanent Grove, a magical forest that forms the spiritual and arguably literal centre of all Earthsea, in the hope that they may find in their shared wisdom some way of restoring rest and reincarnation to the dead that the living may rest and live in hope and ease. I hope that it goes without saying that this perfunctory plot summary of mine by no means spoils the story, as the magic is in the fabric of the telling. But reflections further than that will have to wait for my post about the fifth book which I've accidentally skipped. So stick around.

Tehanu

This book is the fourth Earthsea novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, and I honestly was not prepared for how much of a sharp turn this one took. The first three had all been fairly standard-fare fantasy adventure mystery stories; this is more of a domestic drama, set entirely on Ged's home island Gont. We follow Tenar (who since escaping Atuan now goes by her original name), now a middle-aged woman, and Therru, a young girl who has survived horrific childhood abuse, as the pair simply try to live life on the land. Ged arrives home on the back of a dragon named Kalessin about a quarter of the way through, and this complicates matters for Tenar and her care of Therru, but Ged is stripped of his magic and simply wishes to hide and recuperate. I hope it doesn't sound like a complaint but very little of import happens in the majority of this novel; it is simply the story of Tenar struggling to raise a complex and hurt child in a land that she knows well but is ultimately foreign to her. Then it all kicks off in the last ten pages, but I won't spoil that - except to drop the tantalising hint that Therru comes to learn her true name in epic fashion.

the Farthest Shore

This book is the third of Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea series. We follow Arren, a young man of noble birth from the island Enlad, who has been sent to the Masters of Roke with unsettling news: magic seems to be failing. First from the far reaches of the western isles and increasingly closer to home, mages are forgetting their words and acts of power, and things long-depended-on for the sustaining of common livelihood are passing out of being. The Archmage Ged opts to accompany Arren on a hunch-led and eventful journey to the far south and eventually the far west (as far as Selidor, the eponymous island of dragons) to see if they can unravel this grim mystery. They do discover ultimately that it is the work of an errant wizard who has tried to break down the walls between the realms of the living and the dead, and thus severely harmed the balance; Ged has to expend the fullness of his power to reseal the breach in the world. That may be something of a spoiler but it's the way this story is told that really lends it its magic, so you can't decry me for that. Anyway, I am reading my way through this whole series but reserving my deeper thoughts and critiques for the final post, so keep watching this space.

the Tombs of Atuan

This book is the second of Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea series (see, told you I was going through all of them). In it we are introduced to Tenar, a young girl on the island Atuan, where at an early age she is decided to be the reincarnation of the First Priestess of the Namesless Ones (mysterious primordial powers of death and darkness, chaos and madness) and hence renamed Arha, "the Eaten One". She is raised to full knowledge of the tomb complex around which her habitation community is built, including the depths and complexities of the Labyrinth beneath it. Then one day she sees a strange foreign man in the caverns, who gives his name as Sparrowhawk (spoiler alert - it's Ged, now Archmage of Roke, and on a quest of his own). Without giving too much away the pair help each other find (in both a mystical personal and literal directional sense) their way out of the tomb complexes of Atuan, and onward to hopefully brighter futures. Stay tuned for the post on the next one as we are now entering territory of Earthsea books that I haven't read yet.

A Wizard of Earthsea

This book (which I've read before on this blog so the link there goes to my original post about it - this time though I'm determined to get through the whole series) is the first in Ursula K. Le Guin's seminal fantasy series set in the world of Earthsea.

   We are initially introduced to Duny, a goatherd child on the island of Gont, who proves to have some knack for the magical arts. When he comes of age he is given his true name, Ged, by the local wizard Ogion, and tutored by him for a time; though when his powers prove too great for Ogion to teach satisfactorily Ged is sent to the School of Wizards on the island of Roke. However, ambition and teen angst conspire together and in an attempt to show off Ged accidentally summons a nameless being from the dark realms. The rest of the story is of Ged's efforts to escape, then finally confront, this being.

   I will say nothing of the solution to the plot for want of not spoiling an incredible story; nor will I here divulge my thoughts on the book as a whole, as I stated I fully intend to read the whole series and so will save those reflections for the last post. Stay tuned.

Rights of Man [abridged]

This book (available as a free .pdf on that link) is a 1792 pamphlet by Thomas Paine, or at least a substantive squashed version of the same edited by Glyn Hughes (the original text is 90,000 words, he makes it 7,200ish). As Paine's reputation and its year of publication suggest it is chiefly concerned with the political fallout across Europe of the French revolution.

   Part one opens with a dedication of the work to George Washington; so far so good, I guess. He then dives straight into a no-holds-barred critique of Edmund Burke's reactionary take on the whole affair - defending the revolutionary French Constitution, with support from a restatement of his view on the unhelpfulness and illegitimacy of all hereditary power. Next he copies out the seventeen articles of the universal rights of man as enshrined in aforementioned French Constitution: these aren't as comprehensive as those we currently have under the United Nations, but one can see clearly that for the time they were invoked they were true game-changers in civil and political liberty. He concludes this first part with a prolonged case for liberal, internationalist, democratic values being the chief product and essential safeguard of public Reason; writing "my country is the world, and my religion is to do good."

   Part two opens with a brief letter to one M. de la Fayette. He goes on to praise the American revolution and its core values as an example to all nations. Then follow several chapters on society and government; these are delightfully anarchistic, with Paine dropping bangers like "the more perfect civilisation is, the less occasion has it for government" and "it is impossible that such governments as have hitherto existed in the world, could have commenced by any other means than a total violation of every principle sacred and moral." Based as fuck. Next he discusses the nature and purpose of constitutions - which, he says, is nothing more than to concretize and safeguard the true purpose of governments, which is to promote the common good. In his ensuing internationalist ramble there is a possible prophesy of the EU: "for what we can foresee, all Europe may form but one great Republic, and man be free of the whole." I have no surety which side he would have landed on but I know Thomas Paine would have had a great deal to say about Brexit if he were still kicking about. The final chapter is a heartfelt polemic for the need of reform in the taxation system, with the derived benefits going to support the poor. And in his concluding paragraphs there are a couple of sentiments that undeniably pre-echo the writings of Marx and Engels half a century later - he says "the iron is becoming hot all over" and closes on the lovely image that "it is... not difficult to perceive that the spring is begun".

   Overall this is a punchy little pamphlet. Okay, maybe too little as I could have stood to read the full version, but I feel Hughes's editing made a good job that this felt like a complete set of well-put ideas rather than a Sparknotes summary. Anyone interested in the political history of the modern west should at least give this a once-over - it's one of the most controversial and influential texts in aforesaid history and so cannot be ignored, and many of its arguments still hold water as things that we need to pay close heed to today.

Common Sense

This book (available from that link as a free .pdf file) is a 1776 pamphlet by Thomas Paine, and it is no understatement to say that it's probably one of the most influential and important texts in the history of the modern west. Britain and its north American colonies were fighting a breakup war at the time, and Paine threw his weight into the ring of public discourse with the profoundly optimistic statement that "the cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind." He was an ardent advocate of democratic, egalitarian freedom, and as such a key figure for the ideological discussion around the Great Experiment of American society.*

   He begins with a cogent socio-political definitional outline of the nature and necessity of government, arguing that reason leads us to claim representative democracy as the most stable and reliable way to preserve moral value. Next he launches into a scathing critique of the British constitution, as complex and vague as it is, with specific vitriol reserved for the monarchy and hereditary power, which he argues are not only immoral** but impractical and inefficient. What follows is a pragmatic and passionate defence of the case for American independence; a profound strength of internationalist cosmopolitanism*** pervades these passages in ways that often feel far too modern to be from the 18th century. He completely destroys the morally bankrupt commonplace British objections to America's desire to be free of its "mother nation" - as what kind of good mother wages war against her children who wish to fly the nest? An interesting side point here is that he claims it a fact of divine providence that America was discovered by Europeans just when it was, as it provided a perfect new home of promise and plenty to the many tens of thousands of refugees generated in the decades following the Reformation. In his closing passages he considers the necessity and opportunity of America developing its as-then-yet infant naval forces. Finally there is an appendix, added for the third circulation of this most-inflammatory pamphlet, in which he full-on attacks a recent statement by the King on the American situation, and restates the urgency and human potential of the experiment trying to take shape across the Atlantic. In one of his final lines he sentimentally declares, "let each of us hold out to his neighbour the hearty hand of friendship, and unite in drawing a line, which, like an act of oblivion, shall bury in forgetfulness every former dissension" - which strikes me as just as politically ideal as authentically Christian.

   Ultimately this is a text that you will recognise as being as rightly controversial as it was at the time if you have even the smallest grasp of its historical context - but its dogged and clearly-put rhetoric about self-determination and moral government is just as relevant today as it was then. Well worth a read for anyone interested in western history and timeless politics.

* I dread to think what he would've made of the state of things 250 years later.

** His points herein are unexpectedly biblically grounded (he describes the divine right of kings as "the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry"), and robustly supported by cursory glances at the history of these institutions.

*** On not only nationality but creed too; he writes "I fully and conscientiously believe that it is the will of the Almighty that there should be a diversity of religious opinions among us".

Robert Burns: A Life

This book is Ian McIntyre's seminal biography of the Bard of Ayrshire, the one and only Rabbie Burns, arguably the most celebrated poet in history and an indisputably unique character. I won't give a potted summary here because if you're interested in Burns's life (which is a sparklingly glorious mess) you can read about it on Wikipedia, although I would much more recommend reading this book, as it is deeply scholarly, eminently readable, and thoroughly entertainingly insightful. It's taken me a while to finish reading this - for the past three years I've picked it up every January with the intention of using it as material to construct a properly-informed toast to the Bard's Immortal Memory on Burns Night, but either Covid lockdown prevented me from throwing a Burns Night or I simply didn't read it fast enough; but now finally I have finished it and used it to sketch a toast* that I think does justice to the legacy of this truly singular man. I highly recommend this book: it is a passionate but unbiased portrait of the artist, well placed into his historical context, and sheds a great deal of light upon the eternal qualities of the poetic life.

* I was going to use the sketch of my toast as the basis for this post, but then reflected that it would be a betrayal of the intimate event that Burns Night is; if you would have wanted to hear it you simply should have been there. Burns's character and legacy is so diverse that if this annoys you I implore that you should read this biography along with as many of the Bard's songs, poems, and letters as you can, and write and share your own for the same occasion, as at least then it will truly be your own toast.

Luther's Large Catechism

This book (available online for free from that link) is the fuller version* of Luther's catechism (i.e. the basic text for introducing the tenets of a faith), and as such is probably one of the most influential key texts in the history of Protestant thought and practice. Lutheran** readers will likely be intimately familiar with it already but anyone with an interest in Christian history would find a lot to gain by reading it, and Christians of other denominations will discover in it a rich orthodox statement of how we are called, nay, privileged, to live by faith in the clear simple light of truth. I have no substantive theological or ethical bones to pick here - it is, from my perspective, a faithful and trustworthy testament and valuable for introductory teaching. It is consistently scripturally-grounded and remarkably well-written; Luther was not one to mince words and lays out these reflections on the Christian life and basic theological support for them in direct, accessible language.

   Luther kicks the document off with a walk through the Ten Commandments, and here we come to our first quibble - he messes with them a bit for reasons that elude me. He has condensed the first and second commandments into one, so that we end up with it being a total statement of non-idolatrous monotheism, but with no discussion of the "who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery" portion of these lines in the actual Bible (check it out); he has then kept the list counting to ten by separating the tenth commandment into two. Quite what he was doing in this I cannot say... I mean, so much for sola scriptura, right? But his actual reflections on the Ten are thoroughly helpful. A few minor quibbles - in the section on respecting one's mother and father he extends this commandment to political authority, which rankles me as an anarchist. Further on that point in the section on "thou shalt not kill" he seems to make the point that state authority is exempt from this particular moral absolute, which rankled my anarchism-senses even more. He does in this same section say that enabling death by privilege and neglect is just as condemnable as outright murder though, which is a take Peter Unger would heartily approve. In the section on adultery, we have this fascinating and disturbing quote when he is talking about the problematic outcome of Catholic insistence on clerical celibacy: "For no one has so little love and inclination to chastity as just those who because of great sanctity avoid marriage, and either indulge in open and shameless prostitution, or secretly do even worse, so that one dare not speak of it, as has, alas! been learned too fully." [italics mine.] We all know too well the Catholic Church's historical struggles with abusive paedophilia - part of me wonders whether this was already rearing its head five centuries ago to the point that it was unspoken but common knowledge. The section on theft is wonderfully expansive - a full Marxist analysis of this bit would yield some truly spectacular insights, I feel. The section on lying is morally robust but could be made a great deal stronger with the inclusion of some generally-considered epistemology and psychology. And the section[s] on envy take an unexpectedly objective, active view of this particular sin, which I was raised to think was more the mere subjective passive condition of indulging jealousy, but that Luther seems to say is when one makes actual decisive effort to acquire the property of another.

   The sections walking through the Creed I have very little to say about - this is just hardcore solid uplifting theology communicated with a depth and a deftness I have seldom found elsewhere. His linguistic nuances when talking about "churchness" in the bit about the Holy Spirit are helpful, though I found his maintenance of institutional borders in those same paragraphs less so.

   His opening reflections on the Lord's Prayer are just beautiful in style and empowering in substance. The discussion on the request for "our daily bread" furthermore is intriguingly and helpfully ecological and sociological in its scope.

   The final section, dealing with the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, are also highly moving in their depictions of the spiritual realities contained within these ritual practices, and as a Quaker I found these parts rather convicting (Quakers in general do not formally practice either of these sacraments, as we take a more holistic symbolic view of their intent), in ways that bear further consideration on my part.

   Overall this is an incredibly powerful statement of some of the basic tenets of a good Christian life, written by one of the most reputable sources thereupon. Definitely worth a read if that sounds like the kind of thing you'd benefit from. And who wouldn't? God's goodness shines through clearly on every page of this thing; it leaves one hungry for grace.

* Compare with the Small Catechism that I read yesterday. I gave minimal reflections on that as it made more sense to do that here when reading the principal longer document.

** I consider Lutheranism to be the burning bridge between the Catholic and Protestant communions - and this comes across in Luther's own doctrine, attitude and style.

Luther's Small Catechism

This book (available online for free from that link) is the short version of the Lutheran catechism,* specifically designed to be used by a father for the instruction of his children. As such this is a very short and theologically-minimal text** that I was able to breeze through in under half an hour.

   Luther deals with the Ten Commandments (and I really like how his explanatory givens for all of these ground them in our love for God), followed by the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and finally the sacraments of both baptism and the altar. He writes very simply and directly, with a clear strong rooting in the essentials of biblical literacy applied in accessible and helpful terms. If you're a Lutheran you're probably already highly familiar with this text - if you're not and you're curious about Protestant life and teaching, this could be an interesting read.

* Fancy word for the procedural texts by which young and new believers are to be introduced to the teachings of the faith in question; the Didache is a good example of this from early church history.

** It piqued further curiosity though, so I plan to read the Large Catechism next to dive deeper.

Compelling Reason

This book is a collection of essays by C. S. Lewis, author of the Narnia series and perhaps the most famous 20th-century British Christian apologist. The essays range in subject matter from ethics, theology, aesthetics, cultural concerns, and vaguer trains of thought. I will give each essay a brief outline critique before offering my thoughts on the collection as a whole.

1. "Why I am not a pacifist" - an impassioned, largely balanced, pragmatic argumentation against pacifism, which I think just about succeeds on its own merits even though it barely delves deep enough into moral philosophy to make its point well. Certainly a filibusterous failure from my point of view.
2. "Bulverism" - a study into a plague of modern thinking, which is how people will oftentimes approach an argument by showing why their opponent must be wrong before demonstrating that they are wrong. An original and genuinely compellingly insightful essay.
3. "First and second things" - a pretty bland reflection on myth, cultural memory, and authenticity.
4. "Equality" - a rather kneejerk if you ask me take on egalitarianism, which wears its complete lack of engagement with political philosophy almost proudly on its sleeve.
5. "Three Kinds of Men" - a mercifully short and horribly shallow categorisation of all of humanity into the eponymous trio of camps. Not helpful.
6. "Horrid Red Things" - an intriguingly original reflection on assumption, truth, pragmatic value, and shared understanding: robustly common-sense & widely applicable.
7. "Democratic Education" - makes a couple of interesting-sounding points but overall falls at the same hurdle as [4]; largely comes across, especially to a 21st-century reader, as unsympathetic elitist huff.
8. "A Dream" - anecdotal recount of a dream about the Home Guard; I honestly struggled to see what point if any this one was trying to make.
9. "Is English Doomed?" - a despairing take on the decline of academic English studies which is largely, if not utterly, disproven by historical educational trends since.
10. "Meditation in a Toolshed" - an original and pleasurably-imaginative musing on how to best balance objectivity and subjectivity in one's perspective.
11. "Hedonics" - another highly original and entertaining reflection on the nature of pleasure, and the deplorable lacuna in intellectualism of studying it for its own sake so that it can be better propagated.
12. "Christian Apologetics" - originally read to an audience of Anglican priests and youth leaders in the Church of Wales, this is a robust and engaging and open sketch of the challenges and opportunities of its title matter.
13. "The Decline of Religion" - a level-headed take on the secularisation of British society that had started to rear its head in Lewis's lifetime to the shock of the religious establishment, even though it was merely, as he argues, the manifestation of trends that had been bubbling away for centuries.
14. "Religion Without Dogma" - for my money the best essay in the book: Lewis, with zero philosophical academic weight but a wealth of common sharp logic, strips the concept of religion of everything it can bear to lose while still being worthy of the name to discover if there is an acceptably universal minimal form of it. His rigour in this endeavour paired with actual scholarly study could fill an entire series of theology books, but ultimately for his conclusion that Christianity suffices the lowest-common-denominator middle-ground seems to me well made.
15. "Vivisection" - a fairly utilitarian anthropocentric reflection on the topic, that if you ask me bares the underdevelopment of Lewis's thinking on animal being and rights (not simply because I disagree with him - I don't, in places, but rather that he uses them as a springboard into human concerns with a clear lack of having landed on a satisfactory understanding of them in themselves.)
16. "Modern Translations of the Bible" - a sane and uncontroversial (nowadays at least, unless you're one of those KJV-only purist nutjobs) take on alternate English versions of scripture: all points in here are completely justified by the proliferation and worth of such translations in the years since this was written.
17. "On Living in an Atomic Age" - weirdly jovial in its Christian nihilism; Lewis here pays no attention to international relations or ecology and merely goes off on a sprawling tangent about the value of purposeful life over mere survival (as if the two were wholly disconnected concepts) and lands at a conclusion that I understand but think is morally entitled and politically bankrupt.
18. "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment" - a two-parter in which first the essay and then a response to two critiques of aforesaid essay lay out Lewis's (oh, how shall I say) interesting perspective on the nature of crime and punishment. From a purely moral standpoint I understand his perspective but on a pragmatic level I think he completely fails to grapple with any serious philosophical notion of justice and on a social level he makes "logical" leaps into un-contextualised territories to make his points that left me simply scratching my head at his paranoia.
19. "The Pains of Animals" - this one opens with a letter by a Dr. Joad, critiquing the chapter in Lewis's book The Problem of Pain on this essay's topic, and then follows with Lewis's reply. We already know Lewis's grasp of animals [see 15] is weak to put it mildly, so even though respectably he does admit that his points here are "speculative", the fact that he would have devoted a chapter in one of his books to this subject is intellectually sloppy and from an apologetic standpoint even irresponsible (especially considering what he said in [12] about the responsibilities of apologetics).
20. "Is Theism Important?" - a brief but cogent dissection of the line between intellectual faith and spiritual or personal faith, and how these are or aren't bridged.
21. "Xmas and Christmas" - not even an essay, just a prolonged whinge about the secularisation of the holiday. Zero intellectual content but a fun[ish] read.
22. "Prudery and Philology" - the least consequential thing in the whole book; this is basically just a spiralling diatribe about how problematic it is or isn't that words for genitals are often rude.
23. "Is History Bunk?" - a fairly interesting look into the nature of historical study and where exactly judgement or critique comes into it; I struggle to see any meaningful application of these ideas anywhere they aren't already being wholeheartedly engaged with though.
24. "Willing Slaves of the Welfare State" - the half-baked political thinking Lewis proudly showed off in [4] and [7] is now applied on a global level, with zero economic understanding displayed and zero substantive philosophy utilised, to draw us into an alarmist sketch of global future dystopia under the guise of universal wellbeing.

   Overall I think this is a pretty hit-and-miss collection. Some, like [2], [11] and [14], are definitely worth a read and are original and robust. Many others just smack of rather bland conservative cynicism from a man whose position as a public intellectual privileges him to talk about anything he wants regardless of how much he actually understands the complexities or nuances or the topic (or fields of study entire) at hand. Readers looking for a whole book's-worth of biting, truly compelling argument as Lewis is known for in his Christian writings will only find perhaps 30-40% of such a books-worth here, but anyone interested in his way of thinking should still find this an interesting read.