But the chief matter of property being now not the fruits of the earth, and the beasts that subsist on it, but the earth itself; as that which takes in and carries with it all the rest; I think it is plain, that property in that too is acquired as the former. As much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property. He by his labour does, as it were, inclose it from the common. Nor will it invalidate his right, to say every body else has an equal title to it; and therefore he cannot appropriate, he cannot inclose, without the consent of all his fellow-commoners, all mankind. God, when he gave the world in common to all mankind, commanded man also to labour, and the penury of his condition required it of him. God and his reason commanded him to subdue the earth, i.e. improve it for the benefit of life, and therein lay out something upon it that was his own, his labour. He that in obedience to this command of God, subdued, tilled and sowed any part of it, thereby annexed to it something that was his property, which another had no title to, nor could without injury take from him.
Nor was this appropriation of any parcel of land, by improving it, any prejudice to any other man, since there was still enough, and as good left; and more than the yet unprovided could use. So that, in effect, there was never the less left for others because of his enclosure for himself: for he that leaves as much as another can make use of, does as good as take nothing at all. No body could think himself injured by the drinking of another man, though he took a good draught, who had a whole river of the same water left him to quench his thirst: and the case of land and water, where there is enough of both, is perfectly the same.
Locke's Second Treatise on Government is the one they assign in all the Freshman Humanities courses. The First Treatise nobody reads: it's an argument against the Divine Right of Kings, which no one believes in any more. They only blindly accept the Divine Rights of Capitalists to do whatever they want in a consequence-free environment.
Similarly, the Second treatise was considered the crackpot idea of a wild-eyed radical back in the day, then was accepted as self-evident, and is now spouted mainly by wild-eyed Tea Party reactionaries who believe the most unfortunate parts of it. The parts where Locke says that the sole purpose of gummint is to preserve property rights, and that it is permissible to use deadly force against a petty thief. I guess that means, anyone without property is better off under anarchy, eh?
Then there's the part where the "social contract" is made by individuals with the gummint, and can be retracted by individuals, which is why we have stark raving "sovereign citizens" arguing with a straight face that the laws don't apply to them if they don't give explicit consent. And the part where the citizens get to overthrow an unjust regime, which--granted, Locke put this in at just the right moment, right after the peaceful overthrow of James II--is why the gun nuts are saying they need assault rifles, just in case they have to take up arms against the Unmited States armed services.
The REST of the discourse seems too self-evident to talk about, to most modern Americans. The idea of separation of powers and an independent judiciary were pivotal in the American Constitution, so much so that it's hard to imagine any other way.
The work I read also included a middling-length essay of "Thoughts on Education", which those of you who may be bringing up a son on a country estate with a live-in tutor to teach him such things as falconry and Latin might find useful. Locke recommends a pretty ridiculous diet and curriculum, which may have been the best that the 17th century had to offer. The only part really worthy of study today is the big section in the middle that talks of parenting a child to instill the proper moral virtues--and is, again, a strange mix of common sense and emotional abuse that says more about how awful the prevailing schools of thought must have been pre-Locke than about Locke in particular; for example, he urges parents to use floggings sparingly. How enlightened of him.
I Promessi Sposi, by Alessandro Manzoni
"All according to plan, sir." said Nibbio, with a bow. "The messenger was on time, the girl was on time, there wasn't anyone around at the place where we snatched her up, she only screamed once, and nobody heard her. The coachman knew his job, and the horses were fine, we met no one. And yet..."
"And yet, what?"
"Well, sir, to tell you the truth, I'd just as soon you'd told me to put a bullet through her from behind, without all this business of having to listen to her and look at her face."
"WHAT? What was that? What do you mean?"
"You see, sir, it went on such a long time...Somehow she made me feel sorry for her. Compassion, I suppose you'd call it."
"Compassion? What do you know about compassion? What is compassion, anyway?"
"I never realized what it was before half so well as I have this time, sir. It seems to be something a bit like fear. If a man lets it get hold of him, he loses his manhood."
This one is set in the 17th Century, but was written in the 19th. Since the 17th century is short on prose fiction and short on anything written in or about Italy, I decided to include it this year.
I Promessi Sposi ("The Betrothed") , in yet another testament to Charles Elliott's quirky tastes, takes up a whole volume of The Harvard Classics, as the only novel besides Don Quixote worthy of mention. A very weird choice. But for its presence here, and a cousin who used "I Promessi Sposi" on her wedding announcements, I might never have heard of it. It's certainly not on any lists of great books (besides Dr. Elliott's) that I've consulted, though I'm told that, in Italy, they consider it a national treasure comparable with America's Huckleberry Finn. It is, however, a good, epic book, like hundreds of other good, epic books out there, reminiscent of Victor Hugo and George Elliott, with expansive panoramas of Milan and Lake Como, and entire chapters that divert from the plot to give complex back stories about tangential characters, to explain why those characters make certain choices that help or hinder the protagonists.
The betrothed of the title are Lorenzo and Lucia, whose wedding plans are disrupted by the evil, powerful Don Roderigo, who wants Lucia on an amorous whim. Roderigo has his henchman bully the cowardly local priest into refusing to perform the marriage, then plots to have Lucia kidnapped, The couple flees their provincial village to avoid him, split up, and have adventures involving sinister nuns, underworld figures, bread riots, secret police, war and plague before Roderigo obligingly dies and the couple can marry at last.
Lorenzo is pure of heart, and therefore has the strength of ten men, which he needs, since he constantly makes new enemies over ridiculous misunderstandings. Lucia is so virtuous that her tear-stained visage softens the hearts of men who would ravish her, such that they drop their swords and rush to deliver their souls to Christ and sin no more. Melodrama is on every page, and yet it is a gripping and moving story, if you can suspend whatever snark you may have and embrace The Glurge.
The Picadilly Plot; Death in St. James's Park, by Susanna Gregory; The Fire Kimono; The Cloud Pavilion, by Laura Joh Rowland; The Painted Lady, by Edward Marston
The dream was always the same, its time the sixteenth year of her life. She ran through the streets of Edo. Her hair was magically no longer grey but black and glossy, her body slim and strong and quick. Around her, people hurried screaming in all directions. Flames leaped and roared from burning houses. Roofs caved in with mighty hes. Cinders stung her eyes and burned holes in her leather cape and hood. The smoke was so thick she could barely breathe or see.
--from The Fire Kimono
Chaloner was tired when he reached Tothill Street, and half hoped Hannah would be out. But as soon as he opened the door, he could tell by the acrid stench of burning that not only was she home, but that she was baking. He coughed as the smoke seared the back of his throat, and approached the kitchen with caution, knowing that to do otherwise might result in bodily harm--she was not averse to hurling her creations across the room if they did not turn out as she expected. And, as her loaves had the shape and consistency of cannonballs, being hit by one was no laughing matter.
--from The Picadilly Plot
"The time for war was over more than a century ago, when the Tokugawa clan and its allies conquered their rivals and unified Japan." Yanigasawa said, wise in hindsight. "This dictatorship won't be won by military maneuvers, I see now. Today's political climate calls for more subtle tactics."
"What are they? What are you going to do?" Apprehension shadowed Yorimoto's beautiful face. "Is there a part in your plan for me?"
Yanagisawa was touched by his son's wish to be included in whatever he did, no matter the dangers. Yorimoto was so good, so loyal. "Never fear," Yanagisawa said. "You're key to my whole scheme." Yorimoto was Yanagisawa's best hope of one day ruling Japan. Yanagisawa had big plans for him. "Now listen."
--from The Cloud Pavilion
Unfortunately, the ducks had been disturbed by the fracas, and had scattered into the darkness. Only one remained, its filmy eyes and dull feathers suggesting it was ill. Thoroughly rattled by the whole business, Leak grabbed it with one hand and groped in his pocket for the phial with the other. He forced open the bird's beak, and without thinking pulled out the stopper with his teeth.
As soon as he tasted the searing bitterness on his tongue, he knew he had done something very stupid. His stomach clenched in horror, and he spat frantically...he staggered, hands to his neck, then pitched forward and began to convulse...
---from Death in St. James's Park
Araminta Jewell was, by common consent, the most beautiful woman in London and the fact that she kept her many suitors at arm's length only addes to her allure. She was everything that the four men sought in a mistress and they had been so beguiled by her charms that they had formed a Society for the Capture of Araminta's Maidenhead. The person fortunate enough to win his way into her bed was also destined to collect the large reward to which they had all generously contributed.
--from The Painted Lady
The Fire Kimono is another formulaic 17th Century Japan mystery, this time involving the discovery of a decades-old skeleton and instructions for Sano Ichiro to solve the long-ago murder. One would think that by now the Shogun would be accustomed to Sano's years of efficient and loyal service to stop almost having him executed for treason, but, you know---plot device. The Cloud Pavillion is more of a traditional whodunnit, with (finally) the inevitable State crisis and threats to execute Sano and all his family taking a back seat to a standard set of crimes with a small set of suspects. Trigger warnings, as the crimes involve kidnappings, rapes, and graphic depictions of the associated trauma in a world where "soiled, unclean" women are shunned and discarded by fathers, husbands, and others one would most expect them to turn to for comfort in their time of distress.
Susanna Gregory's period pieces are probably the most educational mystery reading of the year. I've long since stopped trying to solve the improbable plots, and have instead taken to just sitting down and letting Restoration London wash over me. Most of the plots are excuses to explore the same zeitgeists raised in Pepys's diary anyway--in the case of The Picadilly Plot, there is the British colony in Tangiers, rival mercantile trading companies, Earl Clarendon's extravagant mansion, and the King's scandalous mistress. Death in St. James's Park, on the other hand, muddles up corruption in the Post Office, the poisoning of royal birds, a woman's murder made to look like Smallpox, incipient revolutions led by a man thought to be long dead, and the King's scandalous mistress.
Edward Marston wrote much more than the Lord Westfield's Men stories I finished last month. He has a whole nother series set in the Restoration. Unfortunately, The Painted Lady is the only volume my local library has from that one. It's an entirely different tone than the rowdy actors I've become accustomed to. The plot is a nasty one in which the ancestors of Bertie Wooster place bets on who can be the first to seduce a woman who doesn't want them, continuing even after the lady marries someone else. There is an artist who contracts to paint the lady's portrait, and an architect designing the artist's house, and a friend of the architect who is the local constable. From this chain of people, and the murder of the lady's husband, comes a tale in which the suspects are nasty people presented as jolly rogues; the constable is so stodgy and judgmental that one almost forgives the nasty suspects, and the side characters, though the Commonwealth is long gone, are either overentitled libertine cavaliers or overly snooty, humorless roundheads. Unlike most of the Westfield's Men books, this is an actual whodunnit.
New Essays on Human Understanding, by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
That division was a famous one even among the ancients. Like you, they took 'logic' to include everything having to do with words and with making our thoughts known--the art of speaking. But there is a problem about this, namely that the science of reasoning, of judgment and of invention, appears quite different from the knowledge--which is neither determinate nor principled--of etymologies and language use. furthermore, one cannot explain words without making incursions into the sciences themselves, as is evident from dictionaries, and conversely, one cannot present a science without at the same time defending its terms.
This is the last of the major Leibniz books I'm reading this go-around (see bookposts of the last few months for more Leibniz), and as far as I'm concerned, good riddance to him. Bertrand Russell pronounces him a great philosopher who wrote bland things to curry political favor, and he was indisputably a genius and polymath for reasons mostly unrelated to his philosophical works, but I've had enough.
The New Essays were a halfhearted rationalist response to Locke's empirical theory of epistemology (that is, the--at the time--great philosophical rift between those who, like Leibniz, believed that people learned and understood the world primarily by thinking about it, and those who, like Locke, believed we learn and understand only by experience). I'm still reading Locke's huge Essay on Human Understanding, and will likely comment on it next month.
Reading the two together, it seems to me that Leibniz is incorrectly reading, or misreading on purpose, Locke's view. His primary arguments for "innate ideas" concern logic and geometrical demonstration, but he fails to explain how any child would come up with these rules without first either being shown them or attempting to count some objects or something. Further, he treat's Locke's "tabula rasa" (drink whenever Locke or Leibniz says "tabula rasa", meaning the "blank slate" with which we are supposedly all born, and that is written on as we develop knowledge and character) as if we NEVER think without external input, whereas Locke says that, once we have some experience or input, THEN (but not before) we can think just fine.
Recommended for epistemology geeks. Most of us are too busy thinking to step back and consider how we think. We'd trip over ourselves that way.
The Nephew, by James Purdy
The tragedy in the Baker family had been simple and terrible and complete. Doctor Joe, as everyone had addressed him, who had always been a town model for character, uprightness, and brains--the direct opposite of Willard in everything--became involved in what amounted to a virtual public scandal, a love affair with a young married woman in Cincinatti. In the disgrace which followed, and in the falling off of both doctors' practices, Joe, everybody was convinced, had turned to drugs, then, hopelessly addicted, one bright June day in his consulting room before the eyes of a young boy whom he was treating for a cut finger, he shot himself to death. Dr. Baker senior died of a heart attack a week or so later. The mother, whose sun rose and set in Doctor Joe, lingered on a year longer in a condition which mercifully, perhaps, allowed her to mistake Willard for his younger and favored brother. She died, Willard's hand in hers, believing that his touch was that of her beloved Doctor Joe.
Sometimes it's hard for me to tell why something like Winesburg, Ohio remains in the American canon forever, while The Nephew, published in the 1950s, is something most people have never heard of. Purdy's is a much better riff on the standard theme of the nice Norman Rockwell-seeming American small town that is gradually revealed to be full of skeletons; the barnacle-encrusted underbelly of the Good Ship Lollipop.
In this version, an aging brother and sister living together, both childless, have found an outlet for their pent-up affection raising the orphaned nephew of the title, who as the story begins, has gone to serve in the Pacific during WWII and has been reported missing in action. The brother is optimistic that he is alive. The sister is already resigned to the idea that he is dead, and prepares to write a memorial to him. In the process, she interviews local people who knew him, and digs up things about the nephew and the rest of the town that tear off the nice Norman Rockwell facade.
As usual, there is gossip and holier-than-thou judgments and shunning. As usual, the town freaks and pariahs turn out to be better people than the upright, uptight, judgmental gossips. As usual, some of what is hidden is tender and sweet, and therefore hated by the gossips; and some of what is hidden is bitter and hateful, and therefore "none of your damn business" according to the gossips.
Journal of Discovery of the Source of the Nile, by John Hanning Speke
How the negro has lived so many ages without advancing seems marvellous when all the countries surrounding Africa are so forward in comparison; and judging from the progressive state of the world, one is led to suppose that the African must soon either step out from his darkness or be superseded by a being superior to himself. Could a government be formed for them like ours in India, they would be saved; but without it, I fear there is very little chance; for at present the African neither can help himself, nor will he be helped by others, because his country is in such a constant state of turmoil that he has too much anxiety on hand looking out for his food to think of anything else. As his fathers ever did, so does he. He works his wife, sells his children, enslaves all he can lay hands upon, and unless fighting for the property of others, contents himself with drinking, singing and dancing like a baboon to drive dull care away.
I could barely stand to get through this one. The good part is, you get an interesting exploration history and a lesson in East African geography and culture with vivid descriptions of flora and fauna.
The bad part is, to get that, you have to wade through a disgusting narrative of imperialist white Victorian-era racism from a Sir Humphrey Rumphrey Aberthnottle prototype who thinks English culture is the center of the Universe, and who classifies the indigenous people of east Africa as "fauna", no different from animals, and who never passes up the chance to remind you what color the natives are, nor how lazy, untrustworthy and savage they are, nor how he longs to set up a British-style government who will take these useless subhumans and get them to make something of themselves while the British take over the land and put it to good, productive use for white people.
He complains about the lack of civilization like a tourist who goes to a developing nation and is upset that they don't have air conditioning or whatever, except that instead of throwing a tantrum, he sticks out his chin, raises an eyebrow smugly, and tells you how primitive they all are compared to his precious Britain. I wanted to smack him, and vaguely hoped he would accidentally summon Cuthullu and go mad. Lovecraft would have loved Speke.
The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin
"You killed him," you say to Rask. This is not a rational thing. You mean you-plural, even though you're speaking to you-specific. Rask didn't try to kill you, had nothing to do with Uche, but the attempt on your life has triggered something raw and furious and cold.You cowards. You animals, who look at t achild and see prey. Jija's the one to blame for Uche, some part of you knows that--but Jija grew up here in Tirimo. The kind of hate that can make a man murder his own son? It came from everyone around you.
Rask inhales: "Essun--"
And then the valley floor splits open.
In The Fifth Season, the world ends, over and over. Reportedly, it's about to end for the last time.
And once again, a book I would like to go on and on about has a plot that would be spoiled if I said too much about it, and so some background will have to suffice. By "end of the world", Jemisin means an environmental catastrophe, usually brought on by severe earthquakes on this fault-ridden planet, which does not in fact end all life on the planet, but that does severely hold things back for a lengthy time. Fortunately, there are gifted people called "orogenes", who have the power to influence and calm seismic activity. Unfortunately, orogenes are outcasts, blamed for the quakes by an ignorant, superstitious public, and subjected to the control of "guardians" who have the authority to pretty much do what they want by way of discipline. Compare and contrast with the Psi corps of Babylon-Five; if you have the gift, you join or you're imprisoned, and either way, the world hates you.
Into this world, the chapters alternate between three protagonists: A young orogene girl being brought into guardian control, so that her gift can be tamed and civilized; a mature orogene woman whose routine mission to the coast takes unexpected turns; and a woman whose story is told in the second person, on a quest of her (your) own. The three stories eventually interlock.
High recommendations for the thought provoking parallels between Jemison's world and our world, particularly in how people treat the planet and one another, and the potential consequences.
The Age of Louis XIV, by Will and Ariel Durant
This volume is Part VIII in a history whose beginning has been forgotten and whose end we shall never reach. The subject is civilization, which we define as social order promoting cultural creation; therefor it includes government, economy (agriculture, industry, commerce, finance), morality, manners, religion, art, literature, music, science and philosophy. The aim is integral history--to cover all phases of a people's activity in one perspective and one unified narrative; that aim has been very imperfectly achieved. The scene is Europe. The time is from the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) to the death of Louis XIV, whose reign (1643-1715) dominated and named the age.
Eight volumes into the Durants' history of Western Civ, I have very little to add that I didn't say about the first seven. Here we have the second half of the 17th Century and a bit of the 18th, divided into chapters focusing on France; England; the rest of Europe/Russia/North Africa/Middle East; science and philosophy; and an epilogue on France again. Art and literature, morals and manners and some social science works are covered in the country-specific parts; science and philosophy represent the "mind" of the era.
Reading the actual works described at the same time kinda cheapens the Durant experience, but for normal people who don't have time to read so much, it's a decent enough refresher. seems to me, once Ariel took an equal role with Will, the series became more Francocentric--the final four volumes, including this one, are apparently structured based on the lives of the last three kings of France, and Napoleon, after which they decided it was a good enough stopping spot.
Find all of my previous Bookposts here: http://admnaismith.livejournal.com/tag/bookposts