I’ve seen a smattering of them here and there. Some types of blogs are saturated with these types of posts. I’m not sure that I’ve ever really done a formal one before, but I love books just as much (or more) than anyone else out there so this blog has had its share of titles dropped and ideas mentioned and critiqued. But the formal, linked-to-Amazon version has never had its day here, and perhaps it never will (never was chosen entirely arbitrarily, as I’m ambivalent at the moment). Philosophy has its mark in my perspective on book reviewing, just as in everything else, and I suppose the mark itself is found in the answer to the following question:

Just what is the purpose of a book review anyway?

This is turning into stream of consciousness… I had a vague idea when I began that I had a firm idea of where I wanted to go; but now I’m not so sure–and it is perhaps that very path that leads to book-review perdition. Thinking too hard about what others do and think has the terrible result of dulling personal thoughts, ideas, and convictions. The reason I read books and could be persuaded to write “reviews” on them is that they stir my own thinking. A “review” should be used to engage in dialogue and discussion about/with the text. And yet maybe the path is wider. Perhaps merely reporting reactions to text is of great value as a cathartic undercurrent in that it stirs and forces subtle effects to come slowly out into greater light. I’m not too sure at the moment, but I have been reading.

Someone once said that “boring conversation has a soporific effect;” this is true, and if there is anything worse it is a dull book. I read to be challenged or thrilled or stirred or instructed–and the best reading is never one-way; it is never received passively. The best books stimulate dynamic interaction. Book reviews themselves would do well if they manage identity as outworkings of these dynamic interactions; if they’re not they become added to the pages of soporifically stilted text–better kindling than reading… Right, so with some hesitancy I proceed.

I’ve been thoroughly engaged and stimulated by two books as of late: Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig.

Orthodoxy was tumultuously grand; rollicking to and fro on interplaying waves of romantic paradox and biting condescension. If Chesterton would stop trying to insult Nietzsche his ideas would get me a lot further; as it is I find myself alternating between warm, jovial nods of affirmation, and bewildered wincing at his somewhat narrow cocksureness:

Nietzsche always escaped a question by a physical metaphor, like a cherry minor poet. he said, “beyond good and evil,” because he had not the courage to say, “more good than good and evil,” or “more evil than good and evil.” Had he faced this thought without metaphors, he would have seen that it was nonsense. So, when he describes his hero, he does not dare to say, “the purer man,” or “the happier man,” or “the sadder man,” for all these are ideas; and ideas are alarming. He says “the upper man,” or “over man,” a physical metaphor from acrobats or alpine climbers. Nietzsche is truly a very timid thinker. He does not really know in the least what sort of man he wants evolution to produce. (p. 112)

And yet to be fair this is only a minor bit of a chapter. Other passages are sweet to the soul:

You may alter the place to which you are going; but you cannot alter the place from which you have come. To the orthodox there must always be a case for revolution; for in the hearts of men God has been put under the feet of Satan. In the upper world hell once rebelled against heaven. but in this world heaven is rebelling against hell. For the orthodox there can always be a revolution; for a revolution is a restoration. (p. 117)

To switch keys… Mr. Pirsig has challenged perhaps millions with Zen…, and my name is now added to that list. I don’t have a particular passage in mind to share here, but I must confess the “Quality” Chautaqua is provocative. Perhaps part of my attraction to Zen so far is the fact that I can’t seem to quite nail it down. I was expecting a brand of sentimental existentialism in a pseudo-intellectual framework; but somehow his work is evading my preconceptions. Of course, the possibility remains that I may go back to that label after the last page; but I’m not so sure at the moment. And work that defies recognition/categorization (until the last moment) is Art indeed.