fare, posts by tag: books - LiveJournal

I found in a book sale and eventually read “Trapped on Zarkass”, a 2022 English adaptation of “Piège sur Zarkass”, a 2013 Science Fiction comic book based on an eponymous 1958 novel I read in my youth. The result is somewhat entertaining, yet the thought it inspires me is: Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Ingrid Spielman challenges me to this "meme" of naming 10 books that helped shape my mental landscape. I'll be verbose, and though I'll cheat and cite more than 10 books, I will distinguish 10 of them indeed. As to propagating the meme and finding people I want to understand better, or people sufficiently similar yet sufficiently different that I may learn something substantial from their answers, yet who know me enough to possibly be influenced by my naming them, I will tag Rebecca Kellogg Rideau, Perry Metzger, David Lubkin, Gavin Peters, Attila Lendvai, Daniel Nagy, Agnes Koltay, Brandyn Webb, Brian T. Rice, MK Lords. But just because I haven't tagged you doesn't mean you can't play.

1- Some unidentified comic book about Space Conquest. I had that book when I was 2 or 3. The first page had been ripped (probably by me) before I was old enough to fixate memories. I suspect it was a French translation of Disney's "Man in Space": the drawing style was very much that of the 1950s and it was discussing a man on the moon as the next step, when that was already a past step in the 1970s; but the ultimate destination was far beyond. Retro-futurism with wild ambitions was already a theme in my life. There were other comics; already, Barbapapa was brainwashing me into the ecologist superstitions; Russ Manning's Tarzan (L'île hors du temps) was also one of my first comic books, a quick graphic walkthrough from prehistory to future history. But that unidentified comic book somehow marked me deeper by the questions it left unanswered. I've always liked 1950s to 1960s style SF ever since. And good comic books.

2- "The hobbit", by J. R. R. Tolkien. My mom used to read us a book before we went to sleep. The ones that I remember most are "The hobbit" and its sequel "The Lord of the Rings" (that my geeky dad had long urged my mom to read), that I would read later as a young adult, in French then in English. It might be categorized as Fantasy, but it exuded a deep sense of Civilization much more serious, real and earnest than found in most books to purport to say something about it (rather than demonstrate it). These days, these books have been made into movies. Poor young people of today, who may miss discovering the books because of that! (BTW, did you know that Tolkien was an Anarchist? I didn't, at the time.) I find that it is also a great complement to all the Mythology books I read when I was young, that also gave me a sense of history and of people's superstition, but were disjointed, whereas Tolkien shows how to weave (in this case fictional) elements of myth into a compelling story and a coherent spirit.

3- "1984", by George Orwell. I read 1984 in 1984, when I was 10. It made urgent in me a quest for Freedom, for the meaning of "Freedom", for the institutions that could preserve such a thing. It set a theme of Language as a tool for oppression or liberation. It vaccinated me against the propaganda of Socialism, though it didn't have anything positive to offer in return, only a yearning for something that Orwell hadn't identified. Much later, I read (in French) "The Gulag Archipelago" by Alexander Solzhenytsin, Varlam Shalamov's "Kolyma Tales", Cseslaw Milosz's "The Captive Mind", Bruno Bettelheim's "The Informed Heart", Primo Levi's "If This Is a Man", Victor Frankl's "Man's Search For Meaning", or "Le voile arraché" par 'Abd al-Rahmâne al-Djawbarî (as translated to French by René Khawam), that would tell me more about the horrors of totalitarianism, Mind Control, and how to survive them. But Orwell's is the book that marked me, deeply.

4- "The Origin of Species", by Charles Darwin, filled me with awe as to what Science could be. A long accumulation of evidence, presented in an earnest way, with both facts and a way to look at them, in a tone of calm and relentless objectivity. That for me set the standard for what Science should be, which made me particularly skeptical of things that only look like Science, and convinced me that I would never be up to these standards as a Scientist (or bored to death trying to do a fraction of what is required to obtain meaningful results). In a similar vein, Bertrand Russell also set high standards for what philosophy could be. Cavalli-Sforza's "Chi Siamo", Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene" and "The Extended Phenotype", or Robert Wright's "The Moral Animal" also helped form my understanding of Evolution, but the basic ideas were all in Darwin (I admit to not having read Alfred Wallace or Samuel Butler — I suspect I might have liked them).

5- "Gödel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter. I read this book in my early 20s, and discovered that all my childhood had bathed in poor remakes of parts of that book: such were the articles I liked in the monthly math-and-game magazine "Jeu et Stratégie" to which my father was subscribed. This was even more startling than reading Dickens' Christmas Carol after having seen countless bad remakes of it as features of random US TV series. I had already enjoyed Raymond Smullyan's puzzle books ("What is the Name of this Book?"), or Borges' "Ficciones", but Hofstadter was tying all the themes together, even music. Regarding computation and philosophy, Winograd and Flores' "Understanding Computers and Cognition" may have brought a "Third Wave of Cybernetics" point of view of Heideggerian influence missing in Hofstadter. And amongst Hofstadter's books, many of which I read, and of course, these days, my favorite is his "Le ton beau de Marot". But GEB is the book that marked me — before I even read it.

6- "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov. My father had a collection of SF books (in French, mostly), and Asimov was my favorite author there. Though it's not the first I read, I chose "I, Robot" as the representative book here, because somehow I remember enjoying how he illustrated the principle of equilibrium and displacement of equilibrium with a robot circling around a place to go to or not go to according to contradictory orders (reinforcing one leading to a circle of a different radius). Fun literary pieces to illustrate actual scientific concepts. Of course, if my dad's library had carried Heinlein, THAT would probably have been my favorite, what with "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" or "Stranger in a Strange Land" — much more stimulating books. But it's Asimov who initially got me hooked into SF (though I've recently discovered that one SF book that marked me in Junior High was actually Heinlein's "Star Beast"; meanwhile another book that marked me as the only remotely realistic description of the alien invasion of Earth was "The Genocides" by Thomas M. Disch).

7- "The Road to Serfdom" by F. A. Hayek. I went to school expecting my Philosophy professor to at least have some recommendation as to which Philosopher might have something relevant to say about Freedom. But she was all marxism and bullshit, and I left high school believing that no Philosopher had ever written anything good on the topic. The closest thing to a liberty-minded author who was nameable in French philosophical circles was John Stuard Mill, and though there obviously was a wind of Liberty behind him, there weren't clearly formed concepts. What a happy surprise, thus, when my mom acquired a copy of "The Road to Serfdom", and it had exactly the kind of cybernetic argument I had been looking for all along. Though Hayek's book contained no attempt at a general theory, it convinced me that, if not philosophers, maybe some classical "economists" had something good to say (previously, TV had convinced me, like my dad, that "economics" was a combination boring statistics and meaningless words of propaganda).

8- "Complete Works" by Frédéric Bastiat. Hayek was ultimately unsatisfactory, but led me to Turgot, and eventually Bastiat (once again, through my mother, who had read in "Le Monde" (of all places!) Philippe Simonnot's review of Rothbard's History of Economic Thought and its telling of Bastiat's Broken Window Fallacy, the argument of which I had reinvented and been explaining to a former school comrade just a few weeks before). Bastiat was exactly what I was looking for: on the surface, humor used to identify and dissolve fallacies; but deep down, a profound sense of the harmony of the universe. I put as many of his works as I could online on Bastiat.org, long before WikiSource.org. Through Bastiat, I met Jacques de Guenin, who became my mentor in things Libertarian, introduced me to many authors (including Murray Rothbard and Ayn Rand) and people (including Christian Michel, who turned me an Anarchist). Sure enough, I loved "Atlas Shrugged" that made me feel like it ought to have been written if not yet — but I preferred Rand's non fiction, and as a Libertarian philosophical novel, I prefer Paul Rosenberg's "A Lodging of Wayfaring Men". But Bastiat is what gave a new turn to my life.

9- "A Guide to Rational Living" by Albert Ellis. I'm not sure which book by Ellis (probably in a French translation) I had randomly picked in a second hand bookstore, so I'm writing down this one. Of course, at about the same time, I found many hints by other authors or online acquaintances converging towards the cognitive behavioral emotional therapy of Ellis toward improving on one's irrational fears. When you are ready to see, you see what there is to see; and what there was was his ABCDE method. Later, "How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World" by Harry Browne also brought me a much needed understanding of what and how to improve. I could probably cite some books on Procrastination, on (Seduction) Game, or some Dale Carnegie's classic, but unhappily that's unfinished business. And so I'll leave a book by Ellis as the one that first influenced me out of my childhood-grown mental jails.

10- "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards. Back in school, I always wanted to draw, but was always amongst the worst in my class, year after year. Because I was always engaging the "Left Side" of my Brain, the symbolic, cause-and-effect planning modules (whether physically on the left or not). This book taught me how to engage the "Right Side" and how to draw at all. From stick figures and ugly contours to shades of grey triangulated into position, in just a few hours. Now I know I too can draw — though to do it well would I would have to take a lot of time exercising. And it's not just about drawing. Being able to stop interpreting is important. So is realizing that you can still learn new skills. And so I'll give a well-deserved place to this book.

In this recently unearthed posthumous book by J.R.R. Tolkien, the fantasy world filled with dragons and magicians has evolved from warring medieval times to peaceful modernity; furthermore, in the second volume, it is resolutely entering post-modernity.

People in the know understand that Economics is a point of view on human behavior, and not the field of the statistical study of monetary transactions. Ever since the Armchair Economist, there has been a trend for books that demonstrate how Economic Thinking applies to the study of random social phenomena. In his book Discover Your Inner Economist, Tyler Cowen shows how it applies to your own everyday life. Unlike say Harry Browne in How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World, Cowen doesn't use Economic Thinking to address the big questions of one's life. But that's probably a sound choice in many ways. Firstly, it allows Cowen to illustrate how Economic Thinking applies to many topics without having to confront the distortion fields created by religions, ideologies and other past and present strains of the Synopsis. The reader may or may not make the effort to subsequently formalize such Economic Thinking and apply it to other topics -- Cowen provides a gentle introduction. Secondly, Cowen might or might not have many new ideas on the big questions, that have already been discussed in writing, and about which he may not have great life-transforming experiences to tell. Instead he contributes interesting and useful original material by addressing simple issues in which he has been personally involved first-hand for years: how to best enjoy culture, family, health, food, giving. If you enjoy reading, these issues may talk to you.

I love Yukito Kishiro's japanese comic book series Gunnm (tastelessly published in the US as Battle Angel Alita). It is not just another ultraviolent scifi superfighter story: it is beautifully drawn, it is masterfully told, it has odd black humor, it contains a lot of cultural and scientific references, and it has an actual and deep philosophical and ethical content, that goes to the heart of what being human is.

At the end of Gunnm Last Order, Vol. 2, Kaos, one of the characters from the first series, says:

I finally understand... ...what I never saw before! To speak of dreams... to stir people's hearts... ... to gain their trust... and then let them down! I think I've come to see... ...how grave a sin... ...it is to dream!

Without a dream in their souls... ...people wither, people die. And without action, a dream grows stagnant. The only way to atone for my sin, my dream... is to make it a reality!

This has such resonance in me. Following the example of Kaos, I commit to raise from my moral slumber, and advance TUNES.

... is exactly what dominates the Intelligentsia in France and other countries.

You do not endorse Stalin. You do not call yourself a communist. You do not declare your love for the regime. You do not call on people to support the Soviets. Ever. Under any circumstances. You claim to be an independent-minded idealist. You don't understand politics, but you think the little guy is getting a lousy break. You believe in open-mindedness. You are shocked, frightened by what is going on right here in our own country. You are frightened by the racism, by the oppression of the working man. You think that the Russians are trying a great human experiment, and you hope it works. You believe in peace. You yearn for international understanding. You hate fascism. You think the capitalist system is corrupt. You say it over and over again and you say nothing, nothing more.

Double Lives: Spies and Writers in the Secret Soviet War of Ideas against the West by Stephen Koch

Of course, Stalin also had more obvious agents.

Avec un caractère comme j'en ai un, on n'épouse pas n'importe qui. On épouse un cocu.

C'est ce que j'ai fait.

Il ne l'était pas encore quand je l'ai épousé, mais on voyait bien qu'il était fait pour ça. Et ça n'a pas tardé.

C'est comme moi: je n'étais pas encore veuve. Mais il a bien vu tout de suite que j'étais faite pour être veuve. Et ça non plus, ça n'a pas tardé. De ce point de vue, il a été très bien. Ça lui plaisait, à cet homme d'épouser sa veuve. On peut même dire qu'on a été trop vite, tous les deux, ça marchait trop bien, parce que à peine il était devenu mon cocu, je suis devenue sa veuve.

Roland Dubillard, les nouveaux diablogues

this dirty old &}$#*(% jay tagged me, so now I have to admit that I don't read much.

On se souvient rarement d'un rêve, et rarement des détails, sauf à la rigueur de vagues détails, juste après s'être réveillé. Celui-là m'a donné envie de vous le raconter en brodant un peu pour recréer tous les détails et supposés implicites, qui semblent évidents durant le rêve, et indicibles après. C'est l'histoire d'un jeune couple glamour qui a tout pour être heureux mais ne l'est pas.

Nouvellement numérisés sur Bastiat.org: Physiologie de la Spoliation ainsi que Deux morales, respectivement chapitres I et II de la deuxième série des Sophismes économiques, et tous deux éclairants, comme d'habitude. (Merci à Krylenko.)

Notons ou rappelons aussi des traductions récentes: La Loi en japonais (merci, Kyuuri), et ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas en espagnol (merci, Luis).

Puisque j'y suis, le Cercle Frédéric Bastiat des Landes accueillera le 11 décembre 2004 Sabine Hérold de Liberté Chérie.

Enfin, mais pas en moins, en parlant du Cercle Frédéric Bastiat, je suis en train de lire l'excellent livre de son président Jacques de Guenin, ATTAC, ou l'intoxication des personnes de bonne volonté.

Bonnes lectures!

Since several friends did recommend this movie, including David Madore, and despite the gripes of Lew Rockwell, I went to watch I, Robot this weekend with my cousin. As was expected, it is quite far from being an immortal chef d'œuvre, but it's indeed a rather well-realized action flick. However, it is only in the very end, and with a twist, that it turns out to be somewhat faithful to the claimed inspiration from Isaac Asimov, and not at all with the original Robot series. Beware: big spoilers ahead.

I know the point of view I am going to give will seem oh so hackneyed. I suppose it must already have been applied to the very same particular case that I will be considering; and many times so, even, but all of these times have remained as obscure as they rightly deserve — uh, I mean, dark forces conspired to keep the truth from being revealed to the unsuspecting public. Still, at the cost of my mental sanity, I will reveal to you how you too can see the great Cthulhu the way H.P. Lovecraft first discovered it. Not that I could refrain from telling you, anyway.

Henry Hazlitt's The Foundations of Morality took the classical view of ethics, debunking usual mistakes and fallacies, reaffirming the essence of what must be retained. It was a necessary cleanup and restatement of ethics; however, it didn't try to study the nature of the foundations of ethics but to explore what kind of ethics can stand firmly or not on its foundations.

Thus, Daniel C. Dennett's Freedom Evolves can be seen as a complementary text. It establishes the modern foundations upon which ethics can be rebuilt, and related to the sciences of nature: physics, biological evolution, economics. And at the same time, it avoids to delve in the realm of ethics itself (and reveals several time the wrongheaded statist ontology of the author, though in a few isolated marginal remarks orthogonal to the discourse of the book).

Finally, Ayn Rand, in such books as The Virtue of Selfishness or Philosophy, Who Needs It?, gives rational foundations to Ethics, relating it to Metaphysics and Epistemology. And she even studies the psycho-epistemology of anti-morality.

"un seul être vous manque, et tout est ..."

1. "... dépeuplé" (Lamartine, L'isolement)
2. "... repeuplé" (Giraudoux, La guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu)

Don't miss the following short text by Ayn Rand: The Only Path To Tomorrow (1944). I've also added at the end of The Death Of Politics by Karl Hess (1969) the original reactions of the readers.

All of that courtesy of my friend E., whom I made wait much longer than politeness allows. One thing that's good about being dumped is that you suddenly have time and inspiration to do stupid things like putting on your website documents long due for publication.

Jacques de Guenin, président du Cercle Frédéric Bastiat des Landes, vient (mai 2004) de publier aux éditions de l'institut Charles Coquelin un livre essentiel pour désamorcer la propagande néo-communiste:

De Bastiat lui-même viennent de paraître sur Bastiat.org ces deux textes, destinés à ses collègues de l'Assemblée: Discours sur l'impôt des boissons, et Paix et liberté, ou le Budget républicain. (Merci à C.J. pour ces numérisations.) Bastiat est toujours d'actualité, un siècle et demi plus tard.

Si vous suivez de plus ou moins loin Bastiat.org, vous trouverez aussi listés dans l'ordre chronologique au début de la page d'index les textes précédemment rendus disponibles, que j'ai pu omettre d'annoncer au moment où je les ai publiés.

Voilà le genre de choses que je fais quand je déprime légèrement: éditer des textes pour le web, activité qui occupe mon esprit de façon semi-mécanique, et m'évite de penser à mes soucis, tout en me donnant l'impression de faire quelquechose de semi-utile.

In the last few months, I've read a few books by Ayn Rand. Each was quite an agreable surprise, despite my already knowing much about it. Recommended reads.

I am not a Libertarian. At least not in the sense argued against by Daniel C. Dennett in chapter 4 his book Freedom Evolves.

Here's a short article by H. L. Mencken on Democracy: Last Words (1926). I'm sure that among others, my friend Turion Lugol will appreciate, since he's writing (in French) a piece on Democracy. Thanks to Catallarchy.net for the pointer.

Dans notre Espace de Francitude Génial (EFG), tout le monde apprend à l'école et dans les médias à haïr le libéralisme, cette bête immonde qui dévore nos vies, dixit la religion officielle. Cependant, les idées libérales sont systématiquement censurées, et le peu qui échappe à la censure est systématiquement déformé. Aussi, chacun apprend à mettre sous l'étiquette libéral tout ce qu'il déteste, avec pour seule contrainte de ne jamais s'en prendre directement aux valeurs officielles de la religion officielle, le socialisme. Mais comme tout ce que connaît l'Homo Collectivus Gallus (HCG) est socialisme, ce qu'il déteste se trouve n'être que sous-produit de ce socialisme! Ainsi, l'image du libéral honni est en fait la projection des névroses du socialiste. C'est pourquoi les omniprésentes vociférations de haine à l'encontre du libéralisme, dont le principe rappelle les deux minutes de la haine quotidiennes de 1984, ont pour résultat assez cocasse de révéler les démons qui hantent des esprits corrompus par le socialisme.

...an Adventure Capitalist!