Table of Content
Looking back on a year and a half of readings
Quotes and comments “not” from this week’s readings
Anna Karenina, Part three, I-XV
The Prisoner. p. 1786-1826 (ed. Quarto Gallimard) or p. 230-282 (ed. Penguin Classics Deluxe)
Analects, Book 4-7
“not” Next week’s readings
Looking back on a year and a half of readings
I haven’t posted on my substack for the past 2 months. I’ve been busy with the end of the school year and the grading of the french baccalaureate exams. I also have been busy keeping up with this insane reading challenge. It’s been a year and a half since I started reading through Greer’s version of Humanity’s canon, and I’ve learned a lot. It’s been a few months since I started this substack. It’s time to take a pause, look back, assess, and reflect on the future.
What I’ve read so far :
From Western Canon
Plato’s Gorgias
Epictetus’ Enchiridion
Marx’s Communist Manifesto
Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina
Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment
Proust’s In Search of Lost Time (I still have about 4 more weeks of reading before I’m done)
From the Chinese Canon
Confucius’ Analects
Poetry by Li Po
Poetry by Du Fu
Poetry and Essays by Su Donpo
Cao’s Dream of the Red Chamber
From the Indian Canon
Valmiki’s Ramayana
Plays by Bhasa
Tagore’s Gitanjali
From the Islamic Canon
Ibn Rushd’s Decisive Treaty
Ibn Tufayl’s Hayy Ibn Yaqzan
Sa’adi’s Gulistan
Poetry by Hafez
Two of these authors are not on Greer’s list: Tagore and Bhasa. Greer’s original list had 4 empty slots on the Indian Canon, and I’ve asked the friend with whom I’m doing this reading challenge to help me fill the list. She suggested a few names and we ended up adding these two plus the Kamasutra, and The Panchatantra.
Out of the 100 authors (or books) (91 of which are filled) on Greer’s list, I’ve read 18. I had planned for this project to take me about 5 years, I can say quite confidently that it’ll take way longer (no big surprises there). But for now, I’m happy with the pace at which it’s currently going. I’m reading 3 books at the same time, and between 40 to 60 pages for each one. It allows me to also have the time to read books about the authors and books I’m reading for this project. I really hope to be able to continue at this pace in the future.
What’s next?
In the next few months, I plan on reading Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy, Augustine’s Confession, The Bible, and The Tale of Genji. Plenty to keep me busy at least until fall. So the reading is going well, but I’m unhappy with the substack. Quotes are fun, but a bit dry. I could add comments as I did at the beginning, but it’s really labor-intensive. So I’m still looking for the right formula. I will try to fill the gap of the past 2 months by doing 4 big quote posts, one on each book I’ve finished. But I’m still unsure how to proceed after that, although there are a few things I would like to try.
First I’d like to go back to all the books I’ve read so far and write an article explaining what I’ve learned from reading them.
I would also like to write an introductory article when I start reading a new book explaining who the author is, why he should be read, and why I’m reading this particular book.
I will try to continue to write the quotes from this week’s reading, but I will offer fewer quotes.
This is my plan. We’ll see how I manage. I’m good at reading, but writing has always been harder. In the meantime, if there are topics you want me to cover in the substacks, or if you have questions, don’t hesitate to ask me.
Quotes and comments “not” from this week’s readings
Anna Karenina, Part three, I-XV
Konstantin Levin did not like talking or hearing about the beauty of nature. For him words took away the beauty of what he saw. (p. 241)
Maybe all that is good, but why should I worry about setting up medical centres that I’ll never use and schools that I won’t send my children to, that the peasants don’t want to send their children to either, and that I have no firm belief that they ought to send them to? (p. 244)
I think that the motive force of all our actions is, after all personal happiness. In our present-day zemstvo institutions I, as a nobleman, see nothing that contributes to my well-being. The roads are no better and cannot be better; my horses carry me over the bad ones as well. I have no need of doctors and centers, I have no need of any justice of the peace - I’ve never turned to one and never will. Schools I not only do not need but also find harmful, as I told you. For me the zemstvo institutions are simply an obligation to pay six kopecks an acre, go to town, sleep with bedbugs, and listen to all sorts of nonsense and vileness, and personal interests does not move me to do that. (p. 245)
I think, said Konstantin [Levin], that no activity can be solid unless it’s based on personal interest. That is a general truth, a philosophical one. (p. 246)
Well, you should leave philosophy alone, he said. The chief task of philosophy in all ages has consisted precisely in finding the connection that necessarily exists between personal and common interests. But that is not the point, the point is that I must correct your comparison. The birches are not struck in, they are planted or seeded, and they ought to be carefully tended. Only those nations have a future, only those nations can be called historical, that have a sense of what is important and significant in their institutions, and value them. (p. 247)
The Prisoner. p. 1785-1826 (ed. Quarto Gallimard) or p. 230-282 (ed. Penguin Classics Deluxe)
De tous les êtres que nous connaissons, nous possédons un double. Mais, habituellement situé à l'horizon de notre imagination, de notre mémoire, il nous reste relativement extérieur, et ce qu'il a fait ou pu faire ne comporte pas plus pour nous d'élément douloureux qu'un objet placé à quelque distance et qui ne nous procure que les sensations indolores de la vue. Ce qui affecte ces êtres-là, nous le percevons d'une façon contemplative, nous pouvons le déplorer en termes appropriés qui donnent aux autres l'idée de notre bon cœur, nous ne le ressentons pas. (p. 1793)
Of each of the people whom we know we possess a double, but it is generally situated on the horizon of our imagination, of our memory; it remains more or less external to ourselves, and what it has done or may have done has no greater capacity to cause us pain than an object situated at a certain distance, which provides us with only the painless sensations of vision. The things that affect these people we perceive in a contemplative fashion, we are able to deplore them in appropriate language which gives other people a sense of our kindness of heart, we do not feel them.
De relations qui ne sont pas consacrées par les lois, découlent des liens de parenté aussi multiples, aussi complexes, plus solides seulement, que ceux qui naissent du mariage. Sans même s'arrêter à des relations d'une nature aussi particulière, ne voyons-nous pas tous les jours que l'adultère, quand il est fondé sur l'amour véritable, n'ébranle pas les sentiments de famille, les devoirs de parenté, mais les revivifie ? (p. 1800)
Relations which are not consecrated by the laws establish bonds of kinship as manifold, as complex, even more solid than those which spring from marriage. Indeed, without pausing to consider relations of so special a nature, do we not find every day that adultery, when it is based upon genuine love, does not upset the family sentiment, the duties of kinship, but rather revivifies them.
Le monde étant le royaume du néant, il n'y a entre les mérites des différentes femmes du monde que des degrés insignifiants, que peuvent seulement follement majorer les rancunes ou l'imagination de M. de Charlus. (p. 1811)
The social world being the realm of nullity, there exist between the merits of women in society only insignificant degrees, which are at best capable of rousing to madness the rancours or the imagination of M. de Charlus.
Quand j'étais jeune, on me disait qu'il fallait savoir s'ennuyer, je me forçais, mais maintenant, ah ! non, c'est plus fort que moi, j'ai l'âge de faire ce que je veux, la vie est trop courte, m'ennuyer, fréquenter des imbéciles, feindre, avoir l'air de les trouver intelligents, ah ! non, je ne peux pas. (p. 1815)
When I was young, people told me that one must put up with boredom, I made an effort, but now, oh no, it’s too much for me, I am old enough to please myself, life is too short; bore myself, listen to idiots, smile, pretend to think them intelligent.
C'est un homme d'une grande valeur, qui sait énormément, et cela ne l'a pas racorni, n'a pas fait de lui un rat de bibliothèque comme tant d'autres, qui sentent l'encre. Il a gardé une largeur de vues, une tolérance, rares chez ses pareils. Parfois, en voyant comme il comprend la vie, comme il sait rendre à chacun avec grâce ce qui lui est dû, on se demande où un simple petit professeur de Sorbonne, un ancien régent de collège a pu apprendre tout cela. (p. 1821)
He is a man of great merit, immensely learned, and not a bit spoiled, his learning hasn’t turned him into a bookworm, like so many of them who smell of ink. He has retained a breadth of outlook, a tolerance, rare in his kind. Sometimes, when one sees how well he understands life, with what a natural grace he renders everyone his due, one asks oneself where a humble little Sorbonne professor, an ex-schoolmaster, can have picked up such breeding.
Analects, Books 4-7
Those who are Good feel at home in Goodness, whereas those who are clever follow Goodness because they feel that they will profit from it. (4.2)
The Master said, “Do not be concerned that you lack an official position, but rather concern yourself with the means by which you might become established. Do not be concerned that no one has heard of you, but rather strive to become a person worthy of being known. (4.14)
The Master said, “When you see someone who is worthy, concentrate upon becoming their equal; when you see someone who is unworthy, use this as an opportunity to look within yourself.” (4.17)
The Master said, “Of what use is eloquence? If you go about responding to everyone with a clever tongue you will often incur resentment.” (5.5)
The Master said, “When native substance overwhelms cultural refinement, the result is a crude rustic. When cultural refinement overwhelms native substance, the result is a foppish pedant. Only when culture and native substance are perfectly mixed and balanced do you have a gentleman.” (6.18)
The Master said, “Someone who is broadly learned with regard to culture, and whose conduct is restrained by the rites, can be counted upon to no go astray.” (6.27)
The Master said, “Set your heart upon the Way, rely upon Virtue, lean upon Goodness, and explore widely in your cultivation of the arts” (7.6)
The Master taught four things: cultural refinement, comportment, dutifulness, and trustworthiness. (7.25)
“not” Next week’s readings :
Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part three, XV-XXIX
Proust, The Prisoner. p. 1827-1871 (ed. Quarto Gallimard) or p. 282-339 (ed. Penguin Classics Deluxe)
Confucius, Analects (tr. E. Slingerland), Books 8-11