Latest list with this one having more a chain letter like challenge to it. You might recall the last one was desert island writings of philosophers and philosophers to be with on a desert island. Now I rarely join into these things. As often as not because they use the word "meme" which is one of my pet peeves about how language and ideas are discussed. But that's neither here nor there. This one is based upon Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Those of you who've read it (I haven't) know it is about a future dystopia where the government is burning books. To preserve them people pick one book to memorize. They thus become the book. I have to confess to my shame that I've yet to read it. It's one of those "classics" that's always on my list but never quite makes it. Same with Catcher in the Rye. However it just seems that since college I rarely read fiction and when I do it is more apt to be escapist stuff. Anyway, Richard over at Philosophy Etc. "tagged" me to reply to his list. (Which actually includes some of the escapist stuff I've read of late)
So the idea is to give the list and then list three other blogs who have to respond. (Whether they do or not is an other matter)
1. You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?
If I had to memorize a book I'd probably pick either a book of scripture or some science book. Science, it seems to me, is always inherently more useful and liberating than most fiction. For scripture I'd probably be the Book of Mormon. For science it's a harder issue. It'd probably depend upon what was being repressed. Probably some basic biological text, if that was being repressed. Say an upper division text on cell biochemistry of some sort. If even physics was being repressed, I'd probably memorize either Misner, Thorne and Wheeler, the standard General Relativity text or some text on Quantum Field Theory. Unfortunately the QFT text I have is Weinberg's The Quantum Theory of Fields. But it's not ideal. Sadly I can't think of a better one of the top of my head. Of course if civilization was about to collapse, I suspect memorizing the grand old Bible of Science, the CRC Handbook of Chemistry of Physics.
OK, since I'd not read Fahrenheit 451 and thus didn't know the context of what kind of books were actually valuable or not in the book. Glancing through a brief overview of the book it looks like it is more literary stuff. i.e. anything not "useful." In that case I'd probably be Kafka's short stories. (Kafka's definitely better in small doses) Second runner up would be Robert Service's complete poems.
2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Literary or film? Obviously none since I was an adult. For film when I was a wee little lad I thought the Bionic Woman was everything I ever wanted in a woman. But I grew out of that before I was even close to hitting puberty. In literature I honestly can't really imagine anything. I always wanted to be the hero rescuing women. John Carter of Mars or Tarzan were always my favorites when I was a kid. But that's not really a "crush."
3. The last book you bought was. . .
Well, by coincidence I'd just put through an Amazon order yesterday. They were Scott Soames' Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, both volumes. I'd heard excellent things about it as a very good history and analysis of analytic philosophy. I thought I ought fill in some of the gaps in my education. John Sallis' On Translation which I've had in my "to read" column ever since I wrote about it last year. Mark Rowland's Externalism: Putting Mind and World Back Together which I'd heard many good things about and which is tied to my interest in various sorts of externalism, both mental and epistemological. I also picked up two volumes by Heidegger which I've often read about but which have never actually read through and through. Identity and Difference and On Time and Being (not to be confused with Being and Time). Both represent the later Heidegger's thought.
4. The last book you finished is. . .
Interesting question with that "finished" qualifier. After all there are many books I'm reading and some I partake of piecemeal. Some I never intend to read through and through. For one read all the way through, I have to confess it is the same as Richard's. Song of Susannah, the sixth Dark Tower book by Stephen King. It wasn't as good as the fourth one. And the series as a whole never lived up to the promise of the first volume. (Which I believe transcended King's usual "pulp fiction" schtick) The poem which King's work is based upon, The Dark Tower, is actually my all time favorite poem, from long before I read any Stephen King. The first book was much more in keeping with the poem. The way the story in King ended up going is a way of putting all of his stories in some sort of multiverse with a kind of consistency to it all. Unfortunately King's very much a hit or miss kind of author. Most books by him I've tried to read I give up on. But he's definitely done better with the Dark Tower series. (His best book I've read is definitely Misery, which once again transcended the genre as a kind of commentary on writing itself)
As an aside, my favorite fictional book or series is also based on Robert Browning's poem. It is the Childe series by Gordon Dickson. It starts off as sort of a typical "pulpish" science fiction series but ends up being quite a bit more. Unfortunate the last two volumes he wrote in the series were only mediocre. I also think he wasn't sure how to finish the series and then he up and died, leaving it unfinished entirely! So some might not want to read it. For those interested though start with Dorsai and then Soldier Ask Not and then probably The Final Encyclopedia (which in its latest printing is oddly in two volumes) Then read the rest of the series. It's a fantastic series with many layers and overtones. I ought to write about it here one of these days.
Beyond those, the book I've almost finished is Chocolate by Mort Rosenblum. I will actually finish it in a few minutes when I got take a bath. I'm opening up a gourmet chocolate company and I thought reading about the history and the nature of European fine chocolate companies would be worthwhile.
5. What are you currently reading?
As I mentioned, I usually read numerous books at once. There are those I read piecemeal from - often leaving them in my restrooms. Of those I'm rereading Putnam's Realism with a Human Face, Derrida's Writing and Difference along with some of the essays in Neoplatonism and Contemporary Thought. I've also been picking at Sklar's seminal Space, Time and Spacetime. The final book I've been picking at is Dillon's translation of Alcinous which is one of the few handbooks on Platonism from the middle platonic period we have. It's more or less a textbook from the pre-neoplatonic period and is quite interesting.
In terms of more long, involved books, I'm reading Guy Kawasaki's Art of the Starter, related to the afore mentioned chocolate company. I have a book on Unix asynchronous file i/o whose name escapes me. (Yeah, not light reading, but interesting) I have A. C. Lloyd's The Anatomy of NeoPlatonism. For more books I'm awaiting the afore mentioned Amazon order.
6. Five books you would take to a deserted island.
Probably not what most people would pick. I've truly missed doing physics since I've been working after mammon and being a businessman. What I've long wished to do is make enough money before I'm 40 so as to retire and just do physics. So while I'm not sure of the exact volumes, I'd like to get to the point where I could be conversant with the latest in theoretical physics. Of course I'd definitely want to first review my undergraduate stuff. So probably picking five would be difficult. If I could I'd ask for the best texts for reviewing the stuff. Often the texts one used in university weren't the best. If I have to pick off the top of my head it'd be Misner, Thorne and Wheeler along with Weinberg's multivolume textbook. Probably not the best choice, but what I can do without doing a bunch of book research.
7. Who are you going to pass this stick to? (3 People)
Hmm. I'll say my brother, Chris. He's always got interesting tastes and always was more on the empirical side of physics rather than the more theoretical side like me. Probably for my second choice I'd throw it out to Jared, who is a microbiologist and runs the LDS Science blog as well as the Mormons and Evolution blog. There are lots of others I'd be interested in asking. But I'm not sure they'd answer (or if some of them even read my blog) So I'll go conservative and throw it over to Johnny-Dee at Fides Quaerens. (Sorry, too lazy to write the fully blog name) Of course Brandon at Siris or Chris at Mixing Memory would be good to hear from as well. And of course anyone can answer in the comments below as well. I thought about posting it over at Millennial Star, a religious group blog I contribute to occasionally as well. Sort of get it going through the LDS blog community (who call themselves the Bloggernacle after our famous choir)
I'll answer here, since I didn't get an official pass of the baton, and I've never really done a meme before (and wouldn't know who to pass it on to).
1. You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?
I'd go with Ulysseys, because if I had to memorize it, I might finally get it.
2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Yes, several film and literary characters. I always remember Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov (Sonia) particularly.
3. The last book you bought was. . .
I bought three on the same day last week (Tuesday). Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward; Eco's Kant and the Platypus; and Peter Grdenfors's Conceptual Spaces: The Geometry of Thought
4. The last book you finished is. . .
Again, more than one on the same day (today). They were Cancer Ward and F. A. Hayek's (yes, that Hayek) The Sensory Order, which was very interesting, and strikingly similar to Hebb's The Organization of Behavior.
5. What are you currently reading?
Well, a lot, but only a few of which I read everyday. After finishing (and loving) Cancer Ward, I had to read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich again, so I started that this morning. I'm also reading Kant and the Platypus; The Imaginary: A Phenomenological Psychology of the Imagination, because the 25th anniverary of Sartre's death is coming up, and I want to reread Being and Nothingness, where he references this book repeatedly; and Beyond the Limits of Thought by Graham Priest. At the same time, I am slowly (very slowly, in some cases, as I've been "reading" some of these for more than a month) working through The Mind's New Science: A History of the Cognitive Revolution by Howard Gardner; Language in Mind: Advances in the Study of Language and Thought which was edited by Dedre Gentner; Gadamer's Hegel`s Dialectic : Five Hermeneutical Studies, where I just finished the 4th essay, and would definitely recommend the first four if you're interested in Hegel or Hegel's influence; When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler by David Glantz; and Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience by Erving Goffman.
6. Five books you would take to a deserted island.
Well, I would have to take Brother's Karimazov (can you tell I like Russian literature?), and probably Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Plato's complete works, but after that, it's tough. Maybe Ortega y Gasset's History as a System, because the prose is so amazing, and a collection of Faulkner's or Hemingway's short stories (because they never get old for me).
Ulysseys is a good choice. I've started and picked at it, and a few of Joyce's other works. I've just never quite got into it the way others have. Sort of like Kierkegaard I suppose. (grin)
Eco's Kant book is quite fun, although as with all Eco writings, one often never is quite sure how to take it. By the way, what exactly did you mean regarding the relationship between Sartre and Eco? It sounds like you were saying Being and Nothingness references Eco. (grin)
Gadamer's Hegel stuff does sound interesting. I ought to put that on my "to read" list.
Oh, sorry! It does look like that, doesn't it. I meant that Sartre references himself throughout Being and Nothingness. He refers to his work on the transcendence of the ego, and to his essay on the imaginary, which is what I'm reading right now (The Imaginary: A Phenomenological Psychology of the Imagination).
Kant and the Platypus is very interesting. It's the first of Eco's nonfiction that I've read, so I will have to read some more (I own his book on the history of beauty, but haven't read it).
My favorite Eco non-fiction book is his history of European search for perfect languages. Well worth reading, although it does cover some of the same ground as his fiction - especially Foucault's Pendulum (his best book by far)