Noted book critic Kakutani shares her enthusiasm for more than 100 books and novels with brief comments. The book is a good review for the ones I have read and a good introduction to the ones I haven't read.
****Published in 1951, Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism is the classic modern treatment of fascism, which is based on the destruction of objective truth. We are living it today.The dead of truth means people are susceptible to lies and propaganda. The distinction between fact and fiction is gone. Standards for true and false are lost.
Arendt's words ring true today in our country,
Good government employees are replaced by people whose only purpose is loyalty to the leader or the party.
New enemies are continually invoked.
Lying becomes accepted.
Demagogues arise. Tribal hatreds undermine the pillars of democracy. No longer do we have a shared sense of humanity.
****Margaret Atwood The Handmaid's Tale. I need to read this book.
****Robert Caro is the preeminent biographer of Lyndon Johnson. He has published four volumes so far with one more to go. Caro is at his best describing how LBJ seized the presidency after JFK's death and led the country thru the country's hardest time in my lifetime.
****Christopher Clark The Sleepwalkers. How Europe went to war in 1914. The carnage of WWI defies understanding. Exactly how it happened defies understanding. WWI set the stage for the 20th Century unfortunately.
****Joan Didiion is the modern master of the essay. I need to read Slouching and The White Album.
****Joseph Ellis is my favorite early American historian. He reminds his readers of how improbable was the outcome of the Revolutionary War. He reminds uf the willful racism and hypocrisy of Thomas Jefferson. The reader is further reminded that the so-called Founders were men of their time and place with their biases and limited abilities. Jefferson in my opinion deserves eternal condemnation for not doing more to put slavery on a clear path to extinction. That fireball in the night wasn't loud enough for him.
****Somehow Gatsby has endured and rightly so. The last word will never be said about this 20's slim novel. I have always been intrigued with Daisy Buchanan. Like Zelda?
****I wish I had the patience and the interest in reading and learning more about Homer.
****Victor Klemperer The Language of the Third Reich. I am not familiar with this book, but it sounds interesting in that it focuses on the fascist language of the Third Reich.
****Timothy Snyder On Tyranny. Americans today are no wiser that Europeans who saw fascism, Nazism, and communism. We can only learn from their experience. Like Europe we see globalism lead to inequality and resentment. Democracy seems helpless to deal with it.
****For sure Lincoln had a way with words. I need to read Garry Wills. He claims that in his Gettysburg Address Lincoln called for "a new founding of the nation" harkening back to the Declaration of Independence. Quite a trick play, Mr. Lincoln. I think Joseph Ellis would disagree.
****President Obama takes a long vision of history as do I. Scarred by the original sin of slavery, but able to overcome it by persistent work and dedication. I do not share his optimism. America is not yet finished. That's for sure. Obama could have chosen literature as a profession he is such a fluid writer both empathetic but objective. He casts himself in his dream as an Odysseus looking for a home
****In January of 2017 as Trump was being inaugurated 1984 shot to the top of bestseller lists. We certainly live now in Orwellian times. This dystopian novel rings true in our Trumpean time. Shameless appeals to fear and resentment like Orwell's Two Minutes of Hate sessions. Deliberate attempts to rewrite history. Denouncing mainstream news as "fake news." Downplaying science, facts, and evidence. Believing what Trump says regardless of the observable facts and evidence.The party's truth is truth even if it insists that 2 + 2 + 5. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. 1984 is all too real. "What you're seeing and what you are reading is not what's happening." It's terrifying.
****Binx Boling is detached from the world and intellectualizes every part of his life. Movies and books are more real to him than his own experiences. He embarks on a "search," but what is he searching for? He is today's observer with technology insulating us from reality. We check our phones for texts and emails rather than paying attention to the people around us. His lofty philosophical talk expresses his detachment from the world. He moves to change when he falls in love with Kate.
****Frankenstein is mostly talked about in terms of commentary on technology run amok and as a foundation of science fiction. I think of it in terms of the creature and how sad it would be to be the only creature of his kind in the world.
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