The lost cause

The theme at Goat Rope lately has been books, specifically the 10 books that had the biggest impact on me growing up.

(Note: this series has appeared while I'm on furlough and was written in advance, hence no links or comments about current events. Regular publication will resume Monday.)

Here's the lineup so far 1. The Bible 2. Book of Common Prayer 3. Poe's stories and poems 4. Lord of the Rings 5. Tao Te Ching 6. Karate-Do Kyohan 7. Freud/Jung tie 8. Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra 9. Camus' The Plague.

Now that I'm down to #10, I'm having a hard time picking the last one. I think I'll go with Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls. I read it around age 20 at about the same time I started thinking about things like politics and social justice.

I haven't revisited the book since then but this story of an American volunteer fighting against the Fascists during the Spanish Civil War in a hopeless struggle left a pretty big impact.

All of these books hit me hard by the time I was 20 years old or so. Since then, I've gotten more from different authors but early influences run deep. And I still like most of them.

How about you?

Pestilences and victims

El Cabrero is laid off this week so this post was prepared in advance. Regular publication with links and comments about current events will resume Monday August 24. In the meantime, I've been blogging about the 10 books that have had the biggest impact on me growing up. I'd be interested in finding out what would be on your list...

Today we reach #9, but let's review the earlier ones: 1. The Bible 2. The Book of Common Prayer 3. Poe's stories and poems 4. Lord of the Rings 5. Tao Te Ching 6. Karate-Do Kyohan 7. a tie between Freud and Jung 8. Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra and...

9. The Plague by Albert Camus. I don't know about the Gentle Reader, but I went through a tragic existentialist phase from which I may never have completely recovered. Camus was someone who, like karate master Gichin Funakoshi (see #6), has been a kind of moral compass for me.

He grew up poor in what was then French Algeria. He became a Communist briefly as a young man but soon broke with the Stalinists. He called em like he saw em, alienating both the left and right when they needed it. My favorite book of his was the novel The Plague (which admittedly was kind of a downer). Good though.

It's the story of an outbreak of plague in the Algerian city of Oran and how people dealt with it. The plague, of course, was a metaphor for some of the worst social ills of the 20th century, which are still with us.

Here's my favorite quote from it, which serves pretty well as a political platform:

"All I maintain is that on this earth there are pestilences and there are victims, and it's up to us, so far as possible, not to join forces with the pestilences. That may sound simple to the point of childishness; I can't judge if it's simple, but I know it's true."

Man is a bridge

El Cabrero is on furlough until the beginning of next week, so the posts lately don't have any links or comments about current events. Regular posts will resume on Monday, August 24.

In the meantime, these have been prepared in advance. The theme is books, specifically the 10 that had the biggest impact on me growing up. What would make it to your list?

Recap: 1. Bible 2. Book of Common Prayer 3. Poe's stories and poems 4. Lord of the Rings 5. Tao Te Ching 6. Karate-Do Kyohan 7. a tie between Freud and Jung, which led me to #8....

Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra. I ran into this one sometime around age 18 and was totally blown away. It left a permanent scar, one of the good kind. I still love Nietzsche, even though I freely admit he was a little bit whacked. From Zarathustra, I've ranged over much of his work again and again over the years.

The part that hit me hardest at the time was the early part of the book, where Zarathustra returns to the world after 10 years on a solitary mountaintop. He gave a great speech about how we shouldn't be content with ourselves as we are now but should strive to give birth to something better.

Sample quote (from memory) "One must have chaos in one's soul to give birth to a dancing star."

I've got that one covered anyhow.



(Note: regular posts will resume August 24.)

A little fudging

The posts this week were prepared in advance and don't have any links or comments about current events as El Cabrero is on furlough.

The theme is books, and specifically the top 10 that had the biggest impact on me growing up (i.e. not necessarily the ones I enjoyed the most or agreed with).

Recap: 1. Bible 2. Book of Common Prayer 3. Poe's stories and poems 4. Lord of the Rings 5. Tao Te Ching 6. Karate-Do Kyohan and...

7. A tie between Freud and Jung. Sometime late in high school and I discovered the ideas of Freud and Jung. And it stoned me. I think I first found Man and His Symbols by Jung and co. (although I don't think he really wrote much of it) and was totally engrossed. It had all kinds of cool illustrations and rambled over history, mythology, dreams, art and the kitchen sink. I outgrew Jung before too long but it was a nice stage.

My love for Freud was to be more enduring. I hit his books shortly after Jung's and was particularly blown away by The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, which covered slips of the tongue, mistaken actions and all the other ways the unconscious pops out at inconvenient moments. I'm not an orthodox Freudian, but have a permanent soft spot for the old man.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar...but sometimes it's not.

The master text

I'm running down my chronological list of the 10 books that have had the biggest impact on me growing up. What are yours?

Brief recap: early childhood, The Bible, The Book of Common Prayer, The Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. Junior high: The Lord of the Rings. High School: The Tao Te Ching and...

#6 Karate-Do Kyohan by Gichin Funakoshi. I've often discussed my lifelong love of the martial arts here. Funakoshi (1868-1957) was a sickly child who took up karate for his health on his native island of Okinawa and played a lead role in introducing the art to the Japanese main islands and ultimately the world.

This book by Funakoshi is considered to be the Bible of Shotokan Karate and related styles. If you're not into this kind of thing, it's not a page turner. Most of it is devoted to an explanation of techniques and the demonstration of the main katas or formal exercises of the style.

It is also full of Funakoshi's maxims on ethics and the relationship of karate to daily life. He was and remains one of my main ethical beacons. Sample quote:

True Karate-do is this: that in daily life, one's mind and body be trained and developed in a spirit of humility; and that in critical times, one be devoted utterly to the cause of justice.