Nausea (La Nausée, 1938) is the diary of one Antoine Roquentin whose systematic introspection leads him into a frame of mind in which he senses himself absolutely free in a meaningless world. He is overcome with a dizzying nausea to understand that with the radical contingency of freedom comes responsibility – a responsibility to invest […]
Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre Read More »
71 year old Coleman Silk, Dean of Athena College in New England, has been driven from his position by mischievous accusations of racism. After the death of his wife he takes up Faunia Farley, an illiterate milkmaid and cleaner at the college, who is half his age and has suffered a terribly battered life. Approaching the
The Human Stain by Philip Roth Read More »
An ocean liner cannot turn round on a sixpence. Neither can human nature spin itself away from hundreds of millions of years of evolution. Humans are a bundle of pleistocene instincts dressed by Marks & Spencer with some clever gadgetry to hand. Robert Winston (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Winston) expertly dissects the deep human motivations that are really in
Human Instinct by Robert Winston Read More »
The mind-body problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind-body_dichotomy) is as old as philosophy itself. Modern science proceeds with the assumption that the category of subject matter under investigation is physical. How can this accommodate consciouness and mental causation, though? These seem not to be reducible. Qualia (the ‘felt experience’ of the conscious mind, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia) seem particularly resistent. Jaegwon Kim (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaegwon_Kim) offers a fresh
Physicalism by Jaegwon Kim Read More »
There is not much of a plot to this novel of 1955. Humbert Humbert, European emigree literature professor, develops an obsession with 12 year old Dolores Haze, the daughter of his landlady. They take a road trip together after landlady Charlotte (and briefly Humbert’s wife) is killed by passing traffic. In gorgeous, lyrical and seductive prose (over which
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov Read More »
In this novel of 1935 two children, strangers, wait in a well appointed house in Paris: Leopold for his mother, whom he has never seen, and Henrietta for a train. Upstairs an old woman lies dying and her daughter flutters round her. Little does Henrietta know what fascinations this Fisher house contains. There are secrets that have the potential
The House in Paris Read More »
Aldous Huxley spares no one in his ironic, piercing portrayal of a group gathered in an Italian palace by the socially ambitious and self-professed lover of art, Mrs. Aldwinkle. Here, Mrs. Aldwinkle yearns to recapture the glories of the Italian Renaissance, but her guests ultimately fail to fulfill her naive expectations. Among her entourage are:
Those Barren Leaves Read More »
We find the following words in William Blake’s poem Auguries of Innocence. (1803) ‘To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour’. As a comparable thought, would it be possible to embrace all the themes of human life
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Read More »
Andrew Marr (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Marr) is a much admired journalist, author and broadcaster with a talent for making serious subjects accessible. Happily, as of April 2013, he is recovering from a heart attack, and has appeared back on our television screens. When it comes to a history of modern Britain he is shrewd enough to know that yet another irenic
A History of Modern Britain Read More »
