The Turnover of Capital

Volume II

Das Kapital

Karl Marx

5/26/20

The focus of this section is meant to be the money supply, but it winds up being about
nonmonetary wealth infrastructure. One of the things gets wrong is there is too much
investment in capitalism. (One criticism of communism is that there is not enough
investment in infrastructure). Most of the wealth of the capitalist class is tied up in
infrastructure. It does not allow them to buy more zebra cakes (that requires cash).
What it allows is more control over labor power and over the labor class. It is not a
wealth gap, is a power gap.

Classical Daoism Takes Shape

The Norton Anthology of Daoism

6/23/20

This is some odd stuff. It is about magic and alchemy. It made me suspect that this is closer
to the original notion of Daoism than the stuff that is supposed to be earlier. Perhaps the
earlier stuff had been edited later. I don’t think that’s true. After all, Sophocles seems more
modern than Medieval literature. The 180 precepts of the Dao is interesting. It has some
general philosophical musings, but also some very specific things. Things which would make
it very difficult to live in the modern world, but they still seem like you can learn things from
this.

This is when Daoism has to interact with Buddhism. Daoism also supports inaction, the way
Buddhism does, but it is different. “Do not allow your heart to be moved. If it is moved
restrain it.”

Talismans are interesting. I still don’t understand what they are meant to do. In “The Essay
to Ridicule the Dao,” there was a man who was very sick. The doctor induced vomiting and
found the paper talismans he had swallowed.

The Economic Consequences of the Peace

John Maynard Keynes

6/25/20

The allies should be more lenient to the defeated central powers. Their crushing obligations
will cause Germany the be unable to sustain itself and lead to poverty across Europe. This is
well enough, but he also says that America should forgive the war debts of the allied powers.
That’s absurd. It wasn’t our war, why should we have to pay for it. Forgiving the debt is
equivalent to saying that we should have to pay for the war. I don’t think he gets the irony
of his warning that Europe may be reduced to a colony of America. So colonialism is fine
until it is happening to Europe. He says Europe and America are sisters. We are not. We
just speak one of the European languages. We should have been more harsh on them and
given their economies no room to grow, then they would not have been able to start World
War Two. At the end he seems to predict World War Two, but on a second reading he just
makes a bunch of predictions, some of which happened to come true.

Welcome to Chicago

Misbehaving

Richard H Thaler

7/2/20

There are some examples here. The most important one is game shows. They solve the
problem of stakes. Economics researchers do not have the budget to do an experiment that
puts real stakes into the economic decisions people make,
but television networks do. There is a flaw with studying game shows. It is done in public.
One thing he found studying game shows is that the size of the stakes don’t seem to matter.
So we can do away with that theory and continue our studies in the lab.

The Consolidation and Expansion of Daoism

The Norton Anthology of Daoism

7/10/20

There are still some things like recipes for magic potions, but there is some more philosophical
stuff. Some that is an interesting combination of the two “The Technique of the Mystic
Realized One.” Everything is the Dao, we are all ripples in a pond, a lot of that sort of thing,

Science and Politics

Essays in Sociology

Max Weber
Abridged in Great Books of the Western World

7/11/20

The politics as a vocation section was very bad. It was just another bunch of random
assertions, some of which wound up being true. It was, and this whole book may wind up
being, and interesting perspective on interwar Germany. Science as a vocation was a bit
more interesting. He compares the American and German scientific career paths. In both,
it is a lot to do with luck. You either have a flash of insight, or you don’t.

The Resurgence and Diversification of Daoism

The Norton Anthology of Daoism

8/3/20

Now it is starting to become modern. I was thinking about what I wrote, how the ancient
stuff must have been edited. I now think that’s not true. After all, Greek literature is more
similar to modern literature than medieval literature. There is an essay on an elixir. It goes
into some detail about how to make the elixir, but it ends by saying that the reason so many
different texts give so many different (often contradictory) ritual. The reason is because none
of that matters. What matters is living a good life “cultivating perfection.”

“The Great Dao knows no words

The Dao originally is wordless; speaking much will diminish your qi.”

And some things which actively fight against following the old rituals “If you only teach people
the methods…even though you will temporarily extend your allotted number of years beyond
that of the common people, you will ultimately lose the path of everlasting life.”

There are also some poems and some Korean stuff.

The Reproduction and Circulation of the Total Social Capital

Capital

Karl Marx

8/5/20

The capitalist makes money by cutting some of the workers wages. He convinces them that
they must consume his products and they just give the money back to them, and at each step
in the process he cuts a little off the top. This is one of his most absurd arguments. The
worker buys that stuff because he wants it. He would not be worse off if he didn’t have the
stuff. He might not be better off by having the stuff, but he is not worse off. And most of
what the capitalist spends his money on is capital, which goes to making more stuff. I think
the fact that people are bamboozled into buying stuff they don’t need is a false premise and
this argument is dependent on it.

The New Standardization and unification of Daoism

The Norton Anthology of Daoism

8/13/20

This one has Journey to the west, but the Daoist part that I don’t like. I said before I like the
Buddhist part. “Even a strong Dragon is no match for a local worm.” This is later proven
false in the story, but I like the quote. Journey to the North is in this. There is a reason it is
not well known. There is more of people grappling with how do we deal with elixirs of
immortality etc. in our modern world. There is a story called a taste of Immortality. It is
pretty good. Most of this is bad. I’m about to give up on understanding Daoism. It is
starting to feel like crappy Buddhism. The last work in this segment is about the boxer
rebellion. It’s pretty good. It’s only tangentially about Daoism, it is mostly just patriotic.
The ancient works are still good. I should just go and read those things.

Power

Essays on Sociology

Max Weber

8/13/20

His ideas exist between Rousseau and Rawls (I never once thought of Machiavelli, even in a
segment entitled “Power”). I thought of Yu the Engineer when he was talking about how
skilled leaders use knowledgeable individuals without ceding power to them. (I swear he
didn’t sound Machiavellian). The final sage emperor ceded power to Yu in order to stop the
great floods. Laozi thought that power was a burden. The final sage emperor was lucky
that Yu came along with or without the floods.

I have mentioned many times that the ancients are more relatable than the medievals.
Weber may have found a reason. The modern army created the modern nation state, and
“it was discipline and not gun powder which initiated the transformation.” He also found
discipline in ancient armies, “The primeval way of creating trained troops-ever ready to strike,
and allowing themselves to be disciplined-was warrior communism.”

Also, Imperial interests follow commercial interests. I disagree with that.

Helping Out

Misbehaving

Richard Thaler

8/15/20

He talks about writing his book, “Nudge.” I probably should have read that one instead.
Oh, well. This one was fine. He talks about trying to use behavioral economics to help
people. He finds a way to get more people to save for retirement. By doing this he is
accused of paternalism. Until now paternalistic arguments have only been used by socialists.
He coins the term libertarian paternalism. It is made easier for people to make the right
choice, but they still have a choice. Like in the chapter on the stock market, he largely
subscribes to free market economics. I think he even believes the soda tax to be wrong, but
putting added sugars on the label would not be wrong. The quintessential example would
be having people have to tick a box to not save for retirement rather than the other way
round. People have the exact same choice, but we are helping them to make the right one.

Anyway, he gets a job for the government and creates a department that brings in ten times
the revenue than it costs to run. He also admits that behavioral economics can be sued for
evil.

Religion

Essays in Sociology

Max Weber

Abridged in the Great Books of the Western World

8/21/20

Quakers invented fixed prices. Most of the good stuff is from the protestant ethic. It is
famous and I’ve read it before. Protestants have much respect for the self made man and
not to a long lineage. He never comes out and says this, but he seems to view this
phenomenon negatively. In his other essays he seems to extend his central thesis of the
protestant ethic to other religions. He claims that economies grow based on the religion of
the culture. I had a Sri Lankan professor who made this claim as well. He claimed that
Christians truck and barter because Christianity is based on hope. Buddhists just sit around
because Buddhism is based on acceptance. This is false. No one can truck and barter like
the Chinese.
Modern Chinese History and the Remaking of Chinese History

The Norton Anthology of Daoism

3/27/20

This had some really good stuff and some really bad stuff. It had a lot of clerical things that
are fairly important. Daoism is a clerical religion. This is mostly about Daoism interacting
with the western world. A lot of British authors talk about it (BORING). RZA has some
interesting things to say about it. He says some things that could be added to some ancient
texts. “You have to see beyond opposites, to find the real unity among all things,” and “You
need silent weapons for quit wars.” The scripture of the way has been translated many times.
Often woefully inaccurately. In here is a diary from a man working with Heidegger to
translate the way. Incredibly interesting. Ursula K Guin did a translation and I think she
made a critical error. She translates wei wu wei as “do not do.” It should probably be
translated as “do or do not.” Like shi bu shi, dui bu dui, you mei you or é bu é. She
apologizes for any mistake “if we amateurs are co-opting your texts…use…our naiveties and
misunderstandings of Daoism, as…guides to your own work…Not to declare war on
foolishness and ignorance, but to use foolishness and ignorance as guides, seems quite in the
spirit of Laozi.

There is also some communist and Japanese stuff. The communists were interesting from a
historical perspective. The Japanese was boring. He just talks about daily life in a
monastery. I’ve been to Daoist monasteries that is why it was so boring.

The Prince

Niccolo Machiavelli

8/31/20

It is very republican. The central thesis is that power rests with the people. All the terrible
things a prince must do in order to stay in power is to maintain the support of the people.
Utopia (which I have argued against before) was not out yet, but Plato’s Republic was. He
does not like that one, and it is similar to Utopia. It is a static society, with no capacity for
change. The people, therefore, have no capacity to change it. In The Prince, the people
can change society. “A wise prince must think of a way by which his citizens will always and
in all circumstances have need of his state and of him.” In other words, if what the people
want changes, the prince must change to meet them. The prince is still in control, he can
change what the people want, but in the long term, the people will get what they want.

Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad
9/3/20

This is a fairly dull story. The character of Kurtz is interesting in broad strokes, but he is not
enough to hold the story together itself. I am unaware if this story has any antecedents, but
it does have successors. Apocalypse Now was also uninteresting, but Training Day was one
of my favorite movies. I think the setting makes the story. If you find a setting interesting,
you will find the story interesting. I would like to travel up the Congo River myself, but it did
not seem interesting in this story. The setting was not focused on. In my entry on Marco
Polo, I mentioned how it made me want to go to China, and now I’ve been to China.

The Tattooer

Ranizaki Jun’Ichiro

9/4/20

There is a tattooer with a dream. He wants to tattoo a beautiful woman. He wants to tattoo
something beautiful on a beautiful woman. He tattoos a woman who is very shy. She likes
the tattoo, but when the sun hits the tattoo, she becomes different. Assertive and powerful.
It is implied that the tattoo has taken over. This was a really good story.

Death in Venice

Thomas Mann

9/10/20

I think this counts as imagism. Imagism is often boring. I liked Moby Dick, but that’s about
it. It is hard to focus. I’ve said before, I like the Russians and Americans of this period, but
no one else. In Search of Lost Time is next, I hope I can focus on that one better.

Combray

Swann’s Way

In Search of Lost Time

Marcel Proust

Abridged in the Norton Anthology of World Literature

9/17/20
I read if very carefully this time, and I can say, with confidence, it is dull. The cookie moment
is okay. “I do not know what it is, but it comes up slowly; I feel the resistance and I hear the
murmur of the distances traversed.”

The Dead

James Joyce

9/22/20

Joyce is unreadable. A Portrait of the Artist as a Yong Man is written normally and it is quite
dull. This one is terrible. Compare it to The Death of Ivan Ilyich. For some reason this
reminds me of the Major from Fawlty Towers. Especially the Germans episode.

The Waning of the Middle Ages

Johan Huizinga

9/28/20

It seems that he is glorifying the middle ages. That rubbed me the wrong way. Was it
meant to? Was this the beginning of medievalism? For a long time, people as the middle
ages as, “dark.” Now, people shy away from that, and I’m a little tired of people loving the
middle ages. In the end it started talking about art. It didn’t denigrate Renaissance art, but
he wants us to see that Medieval art is worthwhile as well. The final paragraph is good. He
starts by assuming he is living on the precipice of a declining civilization, as people do in all
times, but he doesn’t commiserate. He thinks that “dark” ages can be fun and even
intellectually and aesthetically productive.

The Metamorphosis

Franz Kafka

9/29/20

This is an amazing story. The first time I read it I was pulling the chutes at the hospital. It
was disgusting. This can be interpreted in many ways. I tried to find direct textural
evidence for a couple of these theories. That he wasn’t actually a bug, he just thought he
was, that his parents caused it and were now doing it to his sister. I found nothing direct.
The irony of the “death of the author” is that those writers which are very good at having their
works interpreted in any way the readers wish are precisely the authors who I am most
interested to find what they actually meant.

Diary of a Madman
Lu Xun

9/29/20

I agree. Most people who do bad things do so because (or at least a contributing reason is)
they think that others are just as evil. Maybe not so much to do with cannibalism, but lying.
Most people who are distrusting are themselves liars.

Medicine

Lu Xun

9/30/20

I’ve been to Lu Xun’s house. I can easily picture all he is talking about. The streets I imagine
are more modern than he is probably talking about. It seems like Shaoxing is basically the
same as when he grew up there.

Six Characters in Search of an Author

Luigi Pirandello

10/6/20

This on is great. Modernism really is all over the place in terms of quality. The “story”
reminded me of Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf. This play uses the unique structure to hide
the dark family narrative on the other side.

Are characters more important than story? As a sitcom fan, I would say yes. Start with
great characters, then find an arc for them, then build the story.

In a Bamboo Grove

Akutagawa Ryunosuke

10/7/20

This is Rashamon. If I hadn’t already seen Rashamon, I would probably have been riveted.
Whenever something is done in the Rashamon style, it usually shows what actually happened
first. In Rashamon itself it does not show us the actual events, but it’s implied that the last
story is true. That was the story of the woodcutter. In this one the woodcutter came first
and only found the body. The last story is true story of the dead man’s spirit, and it seems
like the true one. I always wondered how the dead man could be wrong in the movie.
The Road to Salvation

Premchand

10/7/20

It’s poverty. The road to Salvation is poverty.

The Izu Dancer

Kawabata Yasunari

He loves her, and it’s boring.

A Room of One’s Own

Virgina Woolf

Abridged in the Norton Anthology of World Literature

10/16/20

Five hundred pounds a year is vastly more important than having the vote. “You cannot, it
seems, let children run about in the streets. People who have seen them running wild in
Russia say that the sight is not a pleasant one.” People in the US sometimes talk about how
it is as shame that kids don’t do that anymore. I have always thought this was more a class
thing than a time thing. The people who complain about it grew up poor (middle class, but
let’s be simple) and are now rich, and rich people’s kids are often overprotected (and
overworked). That’s why they don’t go out and play. This seems to confirm it. Rich
people a long time ago didn’t like their kids playing in the streets either.

Barn Burning

William Faulkner

10/20/20

I’m bad with symbolism. The barn and the horses symbolize something, but I don’t know
what. Spotted horses symbolize death I think. They are spotted in the next story. Where
they spotted in this story? Death is freedom from persecution?

Spotted Horses
William Faulkner

10/20/20

The horses are obviously spotted in this one, but they don’t seem to symbolize death. The
horses escaping seemed to be a big deal in the last story, but in this one there’s just some
horses running around. It’s fine.

Memoirs of a Declining Ryukyu an Woman

Kushi Fusako

10/20/20

Okinawan culture is being assimilated into Japanese culture. Eventually every Okinawan will
live and work in Japan. Eventually Japanese culture will be assimilated into American culture.
The people may leave, but the sun will continue to rise over Okinawa.

In Defense of “Memoirs of a Declining Ryukyuan Woman.”

Kushi Fusako

10/20/20

People interpreted this story as against Okinawans. It wasn’t. Her uncle was just an
Okinawan. Sort of like Uncle Tom.

An Old and Established Name

Lao She

10/20/20

I thought this had some good business advice. In the end it doesn’t work out. Maybe they
should be who they are and not anti-anything. Not anti-Japanese, not anti-haggeling not
anti-flash. Just be who you are.

My Innocent Uncle

Ch'ae Man-Sik

10/20/20

A dumb guy argues with a smart guy. The smart guy isn’t necessarily right, but it is just
impossible for them to communicate in the same way. One could interpret the dumb guy
as like Jim. That probably wasn’t the authors intention.

The Good Woman of Setzuan

Bertolt Brecht

10/21/20

I guess this is Marxist. Yeah, I guess the reason there are no good people is because of the
rules themselves, like The Good Place. I only know it’s supposed to be Marxist because of
the introduction. Welfare isn’t enough to help people. The entire system has to change.

The Garden of Forking Paths

Jorge Luis Borges

10/21/20

He pre-imagines Kurt Vonnegut. I should read Kurt Vonnegut. Much better to read those
books than this one. This one mostly talks about the idea that books can bed time around.

Sealed Off

Zhang Ailing

10/22/20

This is very well written. I read the first half one day then the second half. I couldn’t follow
the plot. It was something about two people meeting on the bus. I think it is hard to
remember the plot because it was simple. It reminded me of “Jackson Park Express” by
Weird Al.

Constantine Cavafy

Collected in the Norton Anthology of Work Literature

He retells stories of the old myths and histories. The original stories are better.

William Butter Yeats

Collected in the Norton Anthology of World Literature

10/22/20
Decent. I especially liked Leda and the Swan.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Collected in the Norton Anthology of World Literature

10/22/20

I’ve seen headless statues, I don’t have this reaction. I did relate to The Panther.

T S Elliot

Collected in the Norton Anthology of World Literature

I’m really getting tired of Elliot. He is not good.

Requiem

Anna Akhmatova

10/25/20

This is pretty good. I know think that Russian Literature is good no matter what the era.
Her son went to prison; her husband died. Her son may have also died. I feel like she
would have been an even better poet if she had a happy life.

Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías

Federico García Lorca

10/25/20

I guess this was written after World War 1. The approach to death seems to have changed
since earlier work. Was Spain in World War 1. The perspective on death has changed
no matter where they live. The flu made it to Spain.

Pablo Neruda

10/25/20

Collected in the Norton Anthology of World Literature

He can write about anything. I wish I could write like this. He writes about the ruins of
Macchu Pichu. I once saw old men playing cards in a Xia palace. That’s something. I
could write about my experience there, but I have to think about what it could mean on a
higher level.

Notebook of a Return to a Native Land

Aimé Césaire

10/26/20

Awesome. At first I was thinking there is a reason surrealist paintings are famous, but
surrealist writings are not. I was wrong surrealist writing is quite good. I would put Naked
Lunch in the category of surrealist writing as well. T S Elliot seemed to write similarly, but
this has an interesting and passionate subject matter, the plight of the black man in the
Americas. I didn’t catch the plot. I suppose there was one, about returning to Africa, but it
was so sparse, I did not understand it.

Octavio Paz

10/27/20

This was not as good as I was hoping. He touches on interesting topics. He is about as
good as an average Harlem Renaissance poet. Decent, but not great.

The Foundation and Manifesto of Futurism

F T Marinetti

10/27/20

This was a wild ride. He talks about how art should not be about the past, but the future.
“Admiring an old painting is like pouring our purest feelings into a funerary urn, instead of
projecting them far and wide, in violent outbursts of creation and of action.” I think he would
have liked Warhol. Interactive art would have appealed to him, but he would have taken a
dadaist approach to Silver Clouds. Taking a sword in there and cutting them up. In the
end he accepts the fact that future generations will feel the same way about him. But he won’t
let them get him. He will hop in a plane and let his takeoff light a fire that will destroy
everything he ever created, escaping himself into the sunset.

On Literary Revolution

Chen Duxiu

10/27/20
China has great literature, but, for political reasons, the poor literature is focused on. If China
wants to be taken seriously, they have to put their best writers forward.

Dada Manifesto 1918

Tristan Tzara

10/27/20

I struggle to understand the difference between this and Futurism. He puts the year in the
title, implying that the meaning of dada will change next year.

Manifesto of Surrealism

André Breton

10/27/20

Surrealism is about dreams. At least, it takes dreams as seriously as it takes real life. All art
can be thought of as exempt from reason, but Surrealism is also, “exempt from any aesthetic
or moral concerns.”

Creationism

Vicente Huidobro

10/27/20

“A poet must say those things which without him would never be said.” Poetry (and art) must
not reflect nature. To do so is to make a mockery of nature (and art). He provides some
examples. They feel surrealistic.

Black Panther Platform

Black Panther Party

10/27/20

Many black panthers wound up joining the republican party. It is not difficult to see after
reading this. I have long said the republican party can easily pick up basic income.

SCUM Manifesto
Valerie Dolans

10/27/20

SCUM stands for the society for cutting up men, and it’s pretty self explanatory. They also
want to cut up the Aunt Tom’s.

Léopold Sédar Senghor

Collected in the Norton Anthology of World Literature

10/27/20

It is very much about Africa, but it doesn’t make me want to go to Africa the way the
Madagascar poetry made me want to go to Madagascar. I think if I had been to Africa, or I
was African, I would be able to relate to this more. I think it is good, but I just don’t feel it.

House Taken Over

Julio Cortázar

10/28/20

This was mundane. I think that was the point, that the house was mundanely taken over.
The problem is that makes the story boring. There doesn’t seem to be any way of making
the point that the action is mundane, without being mundane. Perhaps one could write a
stressful story and in the midst of it all write “Tony couldn’t help but notice how mundane this
all felt to him.”

This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen

Tadeusz Borowski

10/30/20

From the title, I expected this to be funny. It’s not. It does respond to my earlier thoughts
about how one can portray boredom without being boring. This is a compelling story, but
it conveys banality.

Paul Celan

Collected in the Norton Anthology of World Literature

10/31/20
Another holocaust victim. This time his mom was killed. It really seems like poetry. Just a
few sketches of feelings.

The Old Chief Mshlanga

Doris Lessing

11/2/20

This has a bit of “love of a white lady” syndrome. It might be the Ur-example. It doesn’t
actually get to the part where the white lady saves the colored people. I don’t really know
what I’m talking about. It’s one of those things like Uncle Tom’s Cabin, that is very unracist
at the time, but now seems a little racist.

Toba Tek Singh

Saadat Hasan Manto

11/3/20

The lunatics can’t understand why India has now become India and Pakistan. These are
literal lunatics. This is brilliant social commentary. The real lunatics are the ones who think
that India and Pakistan should be separated.

Lincoln’s Selected Writings

David S Reynolds

Abraham Lincoln

11/3/20
This was largely informative. Before he is president it is interesting to see the contemporary
views on constitutionality. While Marbury v Madison is held up as the beginning of judicial
review, no supreme court ever held anything to be unconstitutional. Lincoln says that it is
mainly the function of the presidential veto to override something on constitutional grounds.
At the start of the war he really did not want to fight it. He just chose to ignore it and
continue sending mail into the south. After that became apparently impossible, he knew the
war had started. During the war he tried to free slaves. I have heard before that Lincoln
did offer to buy the slaves so that they would be free. This is misleading at best. He offered
to give the slaveholders, and later once record keeping in that regard became nearly
impossible, the states, government bonds for the amount the slaves were worth. This at a
time when it did not seem like the union would last, and the bonds could well have been
worthless.
The Gettysburg address and the second inaugural were great of course. One that was
interesting on an intellectual level was an address to the Wisconsin legislature. He talks
about how just because someone is educated, they can still work. One that was viscerally
raw was his response to two women asking for their husbands to be freed on the grounds
that they are religious men. He first frees them. Then he says, “tell him when you meet
him, that I say I am not much of a judge of religion, but that, in my opinion, the religion that
sets men to rebel and fight against their government, because, as they think, that government
does not sufficiently help some men to eat their bread on the sweat of other men’s faces, is
not the sort of religion upon which people can get to heaven!” He was pretty angry after
years of war.

Also, pro-Cuban annexation.

Notes of a Native Son

James Baldwin

11/5/20

Very clearly written. There are no fancy turns of phrase. He just says what he means in the
simplest way possible. It helps bring to light how men feel about segregation and why they
might react with violence. This makes clear how heroic were those who reacted with
nonviolence.

He also meditates on death. He talks about how in death his father has no power. He
means this in two ways. His father was a powerful man in Harlem, and now that is all gone.
He also loses the power that all men have. The power to love and to inflict pain. But, the
people he loved and the people he hurt are still here. He has now power anymore, but the
power he had still affects us.

The Guest

Albert Camus

11/5/20

This seems to work with the same themes as Notes of a Native Son, but it does not work as
well. The Arab is talked about in the third person. It keeps me too far away. Part of the
reason is that the Arab does not speak French. That is one difference between colonial
oppression and American oppression.

Endgame
Samuel Beckett

11/6/20

The universe is ended and people still feel the need to fill the void with incessant chatter.

The Vane Sisters

Vladimir Nabokov

11/7/20

This is quite complicated. I think it represents the good end of the convoluted literature of
the latter twentieth century. The wordplay distracts from the story a bit, but not nearly as
much as others, and underneath it seems more interesting. I plan to read more Nabokov.
I am still a little excited, but not as much as I was.

The Daydreams of a Drunk Woman

Clarice Lispector

11/9/20

She gets drunk and decides that she hates this woman. She thinks she is a skank. She
might be a skank; we don’t really know.

Tayeb Salih

The Doum Tree of Wad Hamid

11/10/20

The tree is an important symbol to the community. They are able to rally around the tree to
effect change in the government. The government changes, the tree stays, but meaningful
change is not effected.
Chike's School Days

Chinua Achebe

11/10/20

This is a lot like I remember school. He has gone memories of learning about seed dispersal,
I have fond memories of learning about the Harlem Renaissance. He is also starting to get
a bit bored of school. His “school days” must specifically refer to elementary school.
Aura

Carlos Fuentes

11/11/20

This is a story told in the second person. It does not have much of an effect on the story. I
never forgot that I was reading a story. It was in Spanish, maybe that made a difference,
because of the conjugation. I also saw the ending coming a mile away, where the old woman
and they young woman were the same. I did not expect her to be contrite, though.

Matryona’s Home

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

11/14/20

At first, it seems like his point is that life under Communism is the same as life under the
Monarch. In the introduction it pointed out that he was not pro-democracy. He actually
preferred the Monarchy. That viewpoint did come out in the last couple pages, but it
seemed like a sharp turn. Maybe it makes more sense if one is Russian, or if one supports
Monarchy.

Zaabalawi

Naguib Mahfouz

11/15/20

Was this supposed to be magical realism? It seems like it. The old man may or may not
have had magical healing powers. Maybe it was just a magnetic charisma.

Identity Card

Mahmoud Darwish

11/16/20

This one was some good poetry. It had modernist elements, while still being intelligible. It
was probably anti-Israel. It could be interpreted that he just wants some respect within the
state of Israel.

Structural Anthropology
Claude Levi-Strauss

11/16/20

Abridged in the Great Books of the Western World

He does some analysis of actual anthropological issues, and some analysis of anthropology
itself. It winds up leaving me wanting on both. His main thrust of the critique of
anthropology is that it is not taken seriously enough in universities. People try and make it
a part of other sciences and it doesn’t fit neatly into any science. He goes into depth about
what we can glean about a society given the words it uses for different family members. He
does this to show that anthropology can teach one a lot but still has its limits. He also
discusses shamanism and compares it to modern psychoanalysis. Unlike others who may
compare the two, he does not do this to denigrate psychoanalysis. He thinks it and
shamanism are useful tools for society. What really is the difference between a demon and
a bacteria?

The Boy and the Deer

Andrew Peynetsa

11/17/20

I think the deer is both literal and a metaphor. This is a story about a deer family. It is also
a story about a human family that is like a deer family.

Walker Brothers Cowboy

Alice Munro

11/17/20

The new world is becoming the old.

Yehuda Amichai

Collected in the Norton Anthology of World Literature

11/19/20

I especially liked part 2 of Tourists. More important than the Roman ruins is the person
going to the market right next to it. I once wrote a poem very similar. People have been
going to the market since Roman times.
Derek Walcott

Collected in the Norton Anthology of World Literature

11/20/20

In one he retells the story of Achilles in the American South. He takes advantage of the fact
that Greek architecture is common throughout the US. He forgot that what we think of as
Greek architecture didn’t exist in Achilles's time.

Seamus Heaney

Collected in the Norton Anthology of World Literature

11/20/20

This seemed very familiar. I think American culture is very informed by Irish culture. Scarlett
O'Hara's dad was Irish.

Death Constant Beyond Love

Gabriel García Márquez

11/21/20

A politician has an affair, but it’s nice, sort of.

Discourses on Livy

Niccolò Machiavelli

Abridged in the Norton Critical Edition of The Prince

11/21/20

This was very like The Prince. I have heard people say that this represents the good
Machiavelli whereas The Prince represents evil Machiavelli. They seemed the same to me.
“Well ordered republics have to keep the public rich and their citizens poor.”

The most interesting part is that republics must have a release valve, such as ostracism or
dictatorship, in order to function. Otherwise it will be forced to work outside the legal
framework. Setting a dangerous precedent.
Two Sisters

Ama Ata Aidoo

11/23/20

A couple talks calmly about a coup. Like Evita, but boring.

One Out of Many

V S Niapaul

11/26/20

It can be hard to change cultures, especially to a multicultural one. Although, it was probably
easier than joining a monocultural one that is not one’s native culture. He finds some hippies
singing Hare Krishna. Does that make it easier for him to be comfortable or harder? In the
end he hates his freedom because it just makes life harder. It is like in the Animorphs around
number 12 where they morph ants and then they can’t cope with being that ingrained in a
society. Then in number 39 (one of the very best ones) various animals gain the power to
morph, and one of them is an ant. The ant morphs Cassie and Cassie has to kill it. It let
out a blood curdling scream when it morphed into Cassie and Cassie knew it would be
perhaps even more horrible to be suddenly separated from a eusocial environment than to
be suddenly transplanted into one. Anyway, this was great, but read the Animorphs first.

Yellow Woman

Leslie Marmon Silko

11/27/20

I guess it’s about the absurdity of racial distinctions.

Wedding at the Cross

Ngugi Wa Thiong’o

11/29/20

A woman is getting married in the Christian tradition, and furring the ceremony decides that
she is not Christian. She is, in fact, very devout in her native religion. I think she decides to
become a nun, but it’s not clear.

Death and the King’s Horseman

Wole Soyinka

12/2/20

This is an interesting one. It is sort of the practice of suttee, but in Nigeria. It is also not
underage girls, but a grown man with a grown child. There is an interesting parallel with an
event in the war where a captain went down with his ship. Whey should we think this
Nigerian version of suttee is barbaric, but the practice of a man going down with his ship isn’t?

The Deep River

Bessie Head

12/3/20

This is an origin story of a group of people in Africa. It is not an accurate retelling. The
elders (who were there) have contradictory accounts. It makes me doubt the efficacy of the
oral tradition. Although, the main thing that gave it credibility in my eyes (the fact that so
much of the oral tradition was later archaeologically verified) still holds. Maybe most of the
problem with oral history happens in the first hundred years. Maybe peoples recollections
of stories is better than their real memories.

Speak, Memory

Vladmir Nabakov

12/4/20

This was a good read, but it was hard to get an overarching narrative from it. In a lot of
places he seemed like he was repeating himself. The only times I was frustrates when I was
reading this was when I was trying to figure out what to put here. Maybe the next time I
read Nabokov, it will be even better. There may have been some symbolism. Is it possible
to have symbolism in an autobiography? There were butterflies and chess, those could have
been symbols of something.

In Camera

Nawal El Saadawi

12/5/20

A woman attempts to expose a man who raped her. She is not allowed to speak out. She
doesn’t do it out of a sense of justice, she does it to get revenge.
The Clever Rain Tree

Oe Kenzaburo

12/8/20

What does it mean to be wise? What is art? There is a tension between architecture and
poetry, which one is a better expression of humanity?

The Perforated Sheet

Salman Rushdie

12/8/20

Perforated sheets seem silly, but I think they probably work. This is a fantastical story about
a doctor who falls in love with his patient through the sheet. The woman was probably
seducing him. Again, this story strains credulity. This is a magical story and it references
Shahrazad. I’m going to read all of Midnight’s Children.

Girl

Jamaica Kincaid

12/8/20

This is a girl being told how to be a woman, a good wife, but deep down she’s a ho.

Of the Propriety of Action

The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Adam Smith

12/9/20

People feel other people’s emotions. Especially their negative emotions. We feel a bit of
happiness at others happiness, but really feel sorrow at others sorrow. In fact, we sometimes
feel emotions opposite those of others and even then, our sorrow at it outweighs our
happiness. We feel sorrow at the joy of others much more than we feel joy at their sorrow.
This is how we feel close up. When viewed from afar, we feel great joy at the economic
success of others and almost nothing at their economic woes.
Giribala

Mahasweta Devi

12/10/20

“A daughter born is already gone.” It is hard to be a woman. Your choices are poverty,
prostitution or running away from home. A lot of the stories from this section have explored
men’s sexual subjugation of women. It brings me back to The Epic of Gilgamesh near the
beginning of this anthology.

The Women’s Swimming Pool

Hanan Al-Shaykh

12/11/20

The granddaughter can’t understand how she never saw water before. She is not quite old
enough that she can be mad at her grandmother for the way the world is, but she’s getting
there.

Récitatif

Toni Morrison

12/11/20

I don’t like Toni Morrison. She shows a female notion of violence that I don’t care to be
exposed to. The two friends have no problem getting along until ones kids must benefit and
the others kids must suffer depending on which side of a racial issue (bussing) they fall on.

The Old Gun

Mo Yan

12/11/20

What motivates men? Ambition? Spite? Hunger?

Niye Osundare

Collected in the Norton Anthology of World Literature

12/11/20
These were fine. Some were fun, others were serious. A good middle ground between the
two was People are my Clothes.

The General Retires

Nguyen Huy Theip

12/12/20

A Vietnam war general (Vietnamese) is retired but wants to die in battle. It’s kind of boring,
I think most of these are going to be boring from here on out. Most good storytellers by
this point were making movies or comic books or popular fiction. Neil Gaiman might be the
best contemporary writer.

And of Clay are We Created

Isabel Allende

12/13/20

Once they stopped talking about rape, these stories became less interesting. This one is
about reporters, skeletons and metaphors. I thought this would be written by a Jew based
on the title.

Man of La Mancha

Chu T’ien-Hsin

12/14/20

It is set in Taiwan, but it is basically America. Everywhere is basically America now. As a

counterpoint, a lot of the things we think of as very American (strip malls) are actually pretty
Chinese.

Drown

Junot Díaz

12/15/20

This was a pretty boring story up until the end. He discovers that he is gay. I have
complained about how modern stores don’t seem to go anywhere, maybe they all do go
somewhere and the plot just speaks to some people and not others. All the stories that
speak to everyone have already been told and new stories only speak to some people. If
someone like me was reading this in 1996, they would have thought the plot went nowhere.
Now it clearly does go somewhere. Maybe all universal stories once only appealed to the
few.

Sensini

Roberto Bolaño

12/15/20

This is another one that feels like it goes nowhere. His mentor dies.

The Novel in Africa

J M Coetzee

12/15/20

This feels like Socrates. He argues against the written word, but also, “Only by an ingenious
economy, an accident of evolution, does the organ of ingestion sometimes get to be used
for song.”

To Look out the Window

Orhan Pamuk

12/16/20

This one also goes nowhere, but it was enjoyable, like Nabokov.

Walt Whitman

Collected in the Norton Anthology of American Literature Volume C

12/24/20

I really do like Song of Myself. The others, I’m a little bored with them after reading them so
many times.

Emily Dickenson

Collected in the Norton Anthology of American Literature Volume C

12/26/20

Fun read. “The Universe – is still –“.

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

Mark Twain

12/27/20

This was okay. It is hard to understand how this is the one that got him famous. I guess it
has some of his folksy sayings, but I’m so used to them, this one doesn’t seem special.

The Selected Writings of Christine de Pizan

1/4/20

There is a reason I bought this book. She’s amazing. I want to read some of these in their
entirety. City of Ladies, I had already read, but it was even better than how I remembered it.
The Book of Peace is a wonderful counterpoint to The Prince. She is writing this in the midst
of the hundred years war, and I don’t know how you would explain the way she talks without
nationalism. She loves Joan of Arc, but writes before her ecclesiastical trial. I wonder if she
lived to see that, and what she thought of it.

Of Merit and Demerit; or, of the Objects of Reward and Punishment

The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Adam Smith

1/7/21

This is about how people’s emotional responses relate to their moral sense. Especially in
th
relation to justice. In the 18 century, chapter titles did a pretty good job of summing the
subject up.

Preparing the Revolution

Leon Trotsky Speaks

Leon Trotsky

1/11/20
The man can speak. What he did is similar to what Trump did recently. Both had about 5
dead. The difference is Trotsky fought for something; however he did overthrow a
democracy. While I learned a lot from the speeches where he overthrew the provisional
government, his speeches during the reign of the tzar were the more interesting. “Our
criminal code…knows of conspiratorial complicity but has no inkling of mass organizations.”

Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain

11/15/21

I’ve read this several times and this time I really wanted to find some purpose to the Duke
and the Dolphin. I couldn’t. I think the two chapters, “I own myself” and “Is a cat a man”
have now surpassed the “You can’t pray a lie” chapter in my estimation. I still like the end.
For some reason, I always imagine telephones in the ending scene.

Mr Eliot, Mr Trilling and Huckleberry Finn

Leo Marx

Abridged in the Norton Anthology of American Literature

1/16/21

The questions asked are more important than the answers given.

Morality and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Julius Lester

Abridged in the Norton Anthology of American Literature

1/16/21

He thinks Mark Twain is racist. First off, there were slave hunters in Illinois, that’s why they
couldn’t just hop across the river. Does he have any evidence that slaves fled from Missouri
to Illinois. Also, the last part was written after a long break, he had legitimate trouble to get
it to make sense. Just because his technical prowess was less than perfect does not make
him a racist.

Huck, Jim, and the American Racial Discourse

David L Smith
Abridged in the Norton Anthology of American Literature

1/16/21

Code Switching. Huck does code switching when he’s being racist with the old lady, then
nice to Jim.

Say it Ain’t so, Huck: Second Thoughts on Mark Twain’s “Masterpiece”

Jane Smiley

Abridged in the Norton Anthology of American Literature

1/16/21

This is another one where they use the less than perfect ending to call Mark Twain a racist.
She criticized one of the parts I really liked. The part where Jim was free the whole time. I
never thought about it, I was just always fond of it. Maybe it is an allegory for how the slaves
were freed during the civil war. Or maybe it goes deeper, once a man resolves to escape
slavery, he is already free. Or maybe there is no such thing as slavery, only barbarism and
cruelty on the other side.

Introduction to Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Toni Morrison

Abridged in the Norton Anthology of American Literature

1/16/21

Of course, Toni Morrison focuses on the horror of it all.

Introduction to the NewSouth Edition

Alan Gribben

Abridged in the Norton Anthology of American Literature

1/17/21

I don’t think Huck Finn should be required reading in high schools. It should be taught, but
not in a mandatory class.
Light Out, Huck, They Still Want to Sivilize You

Michiko Kakutani

1/17/21

I disagree. Literature is not sacrosanct. It is fungible. If the edited edition of Huck Finn
was on a shelf next to the original, I would pick the original, but hat doesn’t mean the new
version shouldn’t exist.

The Private History of a Campaign that Failed

Mark Twain

1/18/21

The title has a double meaning. It is a military campaign in a sense, but it is also the narrator’s
attempt at soldiering. It failed because he didn’t have the stomach for killing. Indeed, no
man should have the stomach for killing.

Fennimore Cooper’s Literary Offences

Mark Twain

1/18/21

He doesn’t like adventure novels. He has some criticism of writing styles, which I guess are
cogent. I haven’t read the book in question.

The War Prayer

Mark Twain

1/18/21

War is Hell. God doesn’t want war. “Help us drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks
of their wounded.

The Luck of Roaring Camp

Bret Harte

1/18/21
I am reminded of Hesiod (The translation I read). It is the one where the gods have the name
of what they are the gods of. The kid personifies luck and is named Luck.

Editha

William Dean Howells

1/19/21

I probably didn’t take this the way it was intended. It was supposed to be anti-war, but
George died in glory. In the beginning he was arguing with Editha, I thought he won the
argument. It was sort of like how people thought that Satan was the hero of Paradise Lost.
George was a more compelling character, with better lines.

The Dynamo and the Virgin

The Education of Henry Adams

Henry Adams

1/19/21

I get it, he’s smart. It’s really boring. Europe is different from America; it’s also the same.
It’s better than America; it’s also worse.

Rodman the Keeper

Constance Fennimore Wilson

1/20/21

There is tension between the north and south. “The lacy of general education is painfully
apparent everywhere throughout the South; it is from that cause more than any other that
you beautiful country now lies desolate.”

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

Ambrose Bierce

1/21/21

I already knew how this ended. I think it was pretty good at keeping the ending vague
without having it come out of nowhere.
Chickamauga

Ambrose Bierce

1/21/21

It is first very boring, then horrifying. He brings up that this is a child right at the end again,
making it even more terrifying.

Daisy Miller: A Study

Henry James

1/24/21

It’s sort of a proto-Lolita. It also is about how the aged spirit of Europe is a “miasma” to the
youthful spirit of America.

The Real Thing

Henry James

1/25/21

Boring.

The Beast in the Jungle

Henry James

1/25/21

The Beast is within. So, I guess the jungle is himself?

Life among the Piutes

Sarah Winnemucca

1/26/21

Abridged in the Norton Anthology of American Literature

Most of what is in here is the modern interpretation of native American culture. Some of
the utopian attributes are exaggerated, in this work and in the modern interpretation.
The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story

Joel Chandler Harris

1/27/21

It’s interesting to find out that Brer Rabbit has flaws. Is it a flaw? He insists that the tar-
baby is rude for not talking to him. What vice is that called?

How Mr Rabbit was too smart for Mr Fox

Joel Chandler Harris

1/27/21

When I heard this story, his fondness for the brier patch was set up in the beginning. And
the moral was explicitly said to be “always keep your cool.”

In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport

Emma Lazarus

1/27/21

America is Israel. And also Babylon.

1492

Emma Lazarus

1/27/21

She sees it as a contradiction that the Spanish expelled the Jews and discovered the new
world in the same year. It’s not a contradiction. The natives were treated worse than the
Jews.

The New Colossus

Emma Lazarus

1/27/21

America claims glory by invitation, not conquest.

A White Heron

Sarah Orne Jewett

1/28/21

It would be great to be able to fly. For most people it is the sense of freedom, but for her,
it is all which is available to observe.

The Country of the Pointed Firs

Sarah Orne Jewett

Abridged in the Norton Anthology of American Literature

1/28/21

This is quite a funny book. “Now and then a bee blundered in and took me for an enemy;
but there was a useful stick upon the teacher’s desk, and I tapped to call the bees to order as
if they were unruly scholars.”

Désirée’s Baby

Kate Chopin

1/29/21

A woman didn’t know she was black until she had a baby. She wasn’t blind.

The Story of an Hour

Kate Chopin

1/29/21

The girl feels free for the first time in a while, then she dies.

The Storm

Kate Chopin

1/29/21
This story would be a lot more explicit today and a lot darker.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

Mark Twain

1/30/21

Some people have interpreted this as an allegory for the gilded age. I don’t think it’s quite
that simple. Mark Twain wrote the book “The Gilded Age.” I have not read it. I should,
but I thinks he is back-pedaling a bit here. His point is that all ages are gilded. It is also
important that things can’t really change that fast. Even though the barbarism of the change
in era can be awful, it is still better than the last era. He speaks of the French revolution
when he says “there were two ‘Reigns of Terror.’” There was one awful period where a lot
of people died and the long period before that where the general system murdered many
people, which was a far worse reign.

It descends dinto author tract quite often. The modernization happens off screen, mostly.
Knights on penny farthings was very funny.

The Awakening

Kate Chopin

2/3/21

It’s about a sexual (or romantic if you want to be nice) awakening. The young woman is
called Edna, which is hard, because I keep thinking it was an old woman’s name. Its another
one that would be much more explicit today. When asked why she loves a man she says,
“because his hair is brown and grows away from his temples; because he opens and shuts his
eyes, and his nose is a little out of drawing; because he has two lips and a square chin, and a
little finger which he can’t straighten from having played baseball…” There’s another good
line, “He did not answer, except to continue to caress her. He did not say good night until
she had become supple to his gentle, seductive entreaties.” It’s all right, but I’d rather of had
another Mark Twain book than this in its entirety. Maybe it’s for girls.

A New England Nun

Mary E Wilkins Freeman

2/3/21

A story about a nun is boring.

The Revolt of “Mother”

Mary E Wilkins Freeman

2/3/21

It’s a stop on the way from the “Lysistrada” and I Love Lucy.

Comments to Major Ma Murray

Smohalla

2/3/21

It is a slight variation of the Garden of Eden. It is a slight variation of Christian Theology in

general. He doesn’t want to leave, so he can be with is family when they rise from the dead.
He doesn’t want to farm or mine, because he can’t hurt his mother Earth.

He has Filled Graves with Our Bones

Charlot

2/4/21

White people are bad, and Jesus is bad for saving them.

An Indian’s Views of Indian Affairs

Chief Joseph

2/5/21

Abridged in the Norton Anthology of American Literature

White people always break their promises. The things he says he wants are quite modest,
he just wants to know where the government will let him be and then let him be there.

The Splinter, the Thorn, and the Rib

The Middle Five

Francis LaFlesche

2/6/21
When I started reading this, I thought it was Mark Twain. It’s pretty good. Fun. I might
want to read the whole book.

Iktomi and the Fawn

Zitkala-Ša

2/8/21

The spirits of Native American religion are not literal, they are just the thing they are?

Defending the Revolution

Leon Trotsky Speaks

Leon Trotsky

2/9/21

Trotsky is at his best when he is against the establishment. In this section, technically, he is
the man. He does fight against the imperialists. It is difficult to remember that at the
formation of the Soviet Union the United States was already the mightiest nation on Earth.
The first speech is great, where he outlines his plans for peace with Germany. He also has
ones where he outlines a possible alliance with Britain. In both, he is incredibly reasonable.
Both arguments are predicated on the fact that the workers of both nations will eventually
(imminently, in fact) overthrow their bourgeois governments. He says the Soviet
government will honor all of its commitments to those governments until they are overthrown.
I still have not quite figured out how this worked, but I have always known that Trotsky was
somehow in charge of the military. He is quite militant, “The chemistry of explosives and
poisons should become central concerns of the Soviet worker and peasant, both man and
woman, for it is a matter of defending the revolution.”

He does not think the Japanese will have any success in a war with Russia. “The Siberian
worker and peasant…would clearly refuse to let the Japanese take him without an effort.”

Flat Pipe is Telling Me

2/9/21

There is talk of unity. Some Native American nations had their own form of manifest destiny.
This made conflict with the federal government inevitable.

Father, Have Pity on Me

2/9/21

Why does he have no food? The title implies that it is his fault. Is he fasting on purpose,
or is there not enough food to eat?

The Crow Woman

2/9/21

I guess it portends victory in the coming battle. They will go back to their former glory.

The Messiah

Black Elk Speaks

Nicholas Black Elk and John G Neihardt

He also speaks of hunger. I never heard of hunger as one of the causes of The Great Sioux
War. He was a bit hesitant of the coming war but wound up being convinced. I assume he
overemphasized his hesitancy with the benefit of hindsight.

The Ghost Dance War

From the Deep Woods to Civilization

Charles Alexander Eastman

Abridged in the Norton Anthology of American Literature

2/11/21

This is a bit more of a straightforward account of the conflict. Unfortunately, he seems to

have been “sivilized” giving a slightly pro Anglo bend to this work.

Our America

José Martí

2/11/21

This is very well written, even if I don’t entirely agree with it.

Up from Slavery
Booker T Washington

Abridged in the Norton Anthology of American Literature

2/14/21

“Cast down your bucket where you are.” It is a very well written and persuasive book.
Hindsight shows he was wrong. The fact that his formative years seem to have been during
the height of reconstruction seems to have been. “I know of instances where the former
masters of slaves have for years been supplied with money by their former slaves to keep
them from suffering.” I am very sure this happened, frequently. It is indicative of idealistic
harmony standing in the way of justice. He believes that the south offers the best chance
for black businesses, “when it comes to business, pure and simple, it is in the south that the
Negra has been given a man’s chance in the commercial world.” This is a viewpoint
sometimes expressed by African Americans that came of age during the final years of
segregation and struggled in the early days of integration. The claim that segregation
provided opportunities that integration deprived is true but misses the point. His vision that
black people would rise themselves up from slavery was (for whatever reason) false.

His viewpoint on voter suppression also makes sense but turned out false. He believes that
“the white man who begins by cheating a Negro out of his ballot soon learns to cheat a white
man out of his.” A perfectly sensible line of reason that never happened. Maybe it would
have happened if black people had been denied the vote for longer? Well, he also believes
that “the effect of such a law is to encourage the Negro to secure education and property,
and at the same time it encourages the white man to remain in ignorance and poverty.” That
one clearly never happened. What is simply reprehensible is at the end where he says we
can “justify the protection of the ballot in many of the states…with equal and exact justice to
both races.” No.

He references a “’grape-vine’ telegraph,” which may be the origin of “heard it through the
grapevine.”

Of the Foundation of our Judgements Concerning our on Sentiments and Conduct, and of
the Sense of Duty

The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Adam Smith

2/14/21

This is sometimes pointed to as the beginning of behavioral economics. He opens this

chapter with a sentiment on why we may have trouble understanding why we must concern
ourselves with behavioral economics, “We can never survey our own sentiments and motives,
we can never form any judgment concerning them.” He repeats his ideas that people are
generally risk averse. This book is very repetitive. He also talks about praiseworthiness.
“(Man) desires, not only praise, but praiseworthiness.” Modern psychologists would
probably attribute this to Pavlovian conditioning. However, that wouldn’t explain why
undeserved praise makes us feel poorly. Maybe there is something deeper about
praiseworthiness.

Most of the things in this tend to make sense, but there is no empirical rigor to any of it. It
is not unlike Up from Slavery in that respect. Adam Smith just turned out to be right and
Washington, wrong. Malthus is a better comparison to Smith. Malthus’s theories and
writing were similarly rational, but unempirical. Malthus was largely wrong, and Smith, right.
I guess it was a coincidence?

The Goophered Grapevine

Charles W Chesnutt

2/15/21

It reminds me of an old movie, where a black guy is actually good at growing cotton and the
white people don’t like it. Business is hard for black men because of racism even if southern
chambers of commerce tried to get people to come.

Po’ Sandy

Charles W Chesnutt

2/15/21

This is a similar story, but without quite as much drama.

The Wife of his Youth

Charles W Chesnutt

2/15/21

Emotionally these are all the same story. It is starting to get boring, I don’t know why the
put four in here. His wife comes back.

The Passing of Grandison

Charles W Chesnutt
2/15/21

This is the same saccharine melodrama as in his other stories only set in Kentucky. 10 out
of 10.

Introduction

The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money

John Maynard Keynes

2/15/21

This is a quick review of the pertinent fact of classical economics. He points out a small
contradiction within it, to do with the marginal value of labor and the maxim that “supply
creates demand.” He also mentions exactly what I said earlier about Malthus.

Talma Gordon

Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins

2/16/21

This is another story about a guy who didn’t know he was black. It’s odd to have two stories
about that and then the Chapelle’s show.

Under the Lion’s Paw

Hamlin Garland

2/16/21

This reminds me of Aaron Sorkin, just a series of arguments.

Yekl: A Tale of the American Ghetto

Abraham Cahan

2/22/21

He’s living the single life, but he’s got a wife in the old world. When she comes back he is
clearly salty about it, but he tries to make it work. It doesn’t last long. He flirts with another
woman and eventually gets a divorce. Then he marries the other woman and it’s clear that
he won’t be any happier with her. I don’t think being an immigrant has anything to do with
the nature of this story.

Preparing Anew

Leon Trotsky Speaks

Leon Trotsky

2/22/21

Stalin is after him. He responds to Stalin’s accusations of treason, not with his own
accusations of treasons, but with accusations of despotism. For most of his exile he
continues to believe that The Soviet Union is still better than other countries, even under
Stalin. When other countries switch to communism, Stalin’s government will fall. He begins
to switch to the American side of things. He attempts to learn English to get closer. Near
the very end he says that if the New Deal succeeds, he will abandon communism and become
a democrat. Before he is murdered he was sick.

Of the Effect of Utility Upon the Sentiment of Approbation

The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Adam Smith

2/23/21

It’s repetitive again. More things that people do that are not self-interested. It tries to give
rational explanations for it.

The Yellow Wall-Paper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

2/23/21

Was she crazy the whole time, or did people thinking she was crazy make her crazy? This
was before the Green Lantern, so there is no reason to make a room yellow. I just
remembered my parents living room is yellow.

Why I Wrote “The Yellow Wall-Paper”?

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

2/24/21

Yeah, the treatment drove her crazy. Especially, the ban on writing. The story actually
changed some doctors’ minds on how to treat mental illness.

Definitions and Ideas

The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money

John Maynard Keynes

2/24/21

First he lays out the idea of GDP. He goes on to tell what goes into it and gives some hints
as to how it might be calculated. He also proves that Savings equals Investment. I love this
proof. You would think that he proves it by saying that all money saved is invested by some
twist of logic, but he doesn’t. He proves that money cannot be saved unless it is being
invested in the first place. While an individual may save however much money he wishes,
one cannot change the aggregate savings rate. If you save your money, you are not
spending it, and the person you give it to when you spend it will not be able to save as much.

The Other Two

Edith Wharton

2/25/21

This is so boring. “Haskett’s acceptance seemed to mark a fresh stage in their intercourse.”
That line makes me struggle to stay awake.

The Edge of Knowledge

The Elegant Universe

Brian Greene

2/25/21

I don’t really buy string theory, but it seems like he is going to put forward a pretty convincing
argument. He does allude to testable predictions, which I have never heard of until now. I
think string theory jumped the shark when it changed to M-theory. He is going to explain
that, too.

Roman Fever
Edith Wharton

2/26/21

Same boring stuff, but in Italy.

Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon the Sentiments of Moral Approbation and
Disapprobation

The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Adam Smith

2/28/21

Once more Adam Smith has proved himself the master of titles. It is about cultural relativism.
He thinks English culture has the correct morals and that barbarous countries (Italy and France)
will eventually catch up. His final example is infanticide. He goes into so much detail that
I would have thought that he was using a rhetorical device to convince me that infanticide
was okay. Adam Smith is not good at rhetoric.

Mob Rule in New Orleans

Ida B Wells

Abridged in The Norton Anthology of American Literature

3/1/21

It is odd that Louisiana was the best place to be a slave, and the worst to be a freedman.
Plessy v Ferguson, a major anti-reconstruction riot and this all took place here. This is about
major lynchings in New Orleans. It focuses in on one of a man who believed that African-
Americans should colonize Africa. Literature supporting this was deemed subversive. A lot
of this was being played out by cops. She has a very straight-forward style, sort of an
invisible style.

The Propensity to Consume

The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money

John Maynard Keynes

3/2/21
The propensity to consume decreases with each dollar earned. The major loophole in the
fact that savings in a nation cannot be changed is the government. The government may
decide to invest in whatever it wants. He is famous for advocating that the government build
totally useless pyramids to stimulate the economy, but he only says that because government
seems to be unwilling to spend it on useful things. They are more interested in digging holes
in the ground (gold mining) than building houses. He says this is only possible with deficit
spending. Thomas Picketty says that government debt is a little silly, because it is the
government borrowing money from wealthy men that should be taxed higher. I wonder
how Keynes would respond to that.

Mrs Spring Fragrance

Sui Sin Far

3/2/21

Why does the husband want to work so hard rather than stay with his family? Is it the
American part of him or the Chinese part? I think we were supposed to know, but I can’t tell.

The Souls of Black Folk

W E B DuBois

Abridged in the Norton Anthology of American Literature

3/6/21

I’ve read this one a lot now and I no longer have much to say. He talks a bit about Negro
Spirituals. He analyses the lyrics and he is starting to see modern American music be formed
out of them. He fails to mention their use in the underground railroad. Did he not know,
or did he just ignore it? It is so obvious once you know. They all reference a direction,
topographical feature or time of day.

Editor’s Study

William Dean Howells

Abridged in The Norton Anthology of American Literature

3/6/21

Naturalism is not a break from the literature that has come before. Rather, it is what writers
have been trying to do up until now.
The Art of Fiction

Henry Adams

Abridged in The Norton Anthology of American Literature

3/6/21

This it is really full of himself. He does say something interesting near the end, “It sounds
almost purple to say that some incidents are intrinsically more important than others…the
only classification of the novel that I can understand is into that which has life and that which
has it not.”

Local Color in Art

Hamlin Garland

Abridged in The Norton Anthology of American Literature

3/6/21

Write what you want, screw what other people think.

The New Story-Tellers and the Doom of Realism

William Roscoe Thayer

Abridged in The Norton Anthology of American Literature

3/6/21

“Realism (indicates) the decadence of fiction.”

A Plea for Romantic Fiction

Frank Norris

3/6/21

“Realism is the kind of fiction that confines itself to the type of normal life.” I don’t care for
realism. I like Mark Twain who is often called a realist, but many people have been saying
that realism has been applied too broadly.
At the end Mr. Norris launches into a bunch of flowery prose that I don’t care for. Perhaps
Mark Twain is the virtuous mean between the vices of realism and romanticism.

What Life Means to Me

Jack London

3/6/21

Abridged in The Norton Anthology of American Literature

I guess this is the start of socialist realism.

Masculine Literature

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Abridged in The Norton Anthology of American Literature

A lack of realism in literature has particularly failed in its depiction of women. This is an
interesting point, but I think one could also make the opposite argument.

A Deal in Wheat

Frank Norris

3/7/21

Literature was a lot more left wing back then. Maybe reality was more right wing.

The Dilemma of Space, Time, and the Quanta

The Elegant Universe

Brian Greene

3/7/21

His examples are a little preposterous. So far this has been a review of stuff I already knew.
He is going to get into string theory in the next unit.

Sister Carrie

Theodore Dreiser
Abridged in the Norton Anthology of American Literature

3/9/21

This one was probably socialist, but I didn’t get it. A woman tries to get a job.

Of the Character of Virtue

The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Adam Smith

3/9/21

This is one that finally has a conclusion. It is good to overvalue yourself a little bit. One
thing that does is that it drives artists to perfection.

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets

Stephen Crane

3/13/21

Books about women are not good in this period. (Many are written by men). The plot is
exactly what you would expect from the title. I’m also getting tired of people speaking in
vernacular.

The Open Boat

Stephen Crane

3/14/21

This feels like Steven King. I feel like he also wrote a story with a cook and a captain.

The Black Riders

Stephen Crane

Collected in The Norton Anthology of American Literature

3/14/21
One is about sailing, the other is about chasing the horizon. This was after the 1890 census,
but maybe before it was published? The 1890 census declared that the frontier was no more.

War is Kind

Stephen Crane

Collected in The Norton Anthology of American Literature

3/14/21

War (and other forms of violence) should not be glorified. 21 is very good. It is about the
universes indifference towards us.

Lift Every Voice and Sing

James Weldon Johnson

3/14/21

They sing because they are free. He refers to our “native land” by which he means America.

Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

James Weldon Johnson

Abridged in The Norton Anthology of American Literature

3/15/21

I expected this to be more biting than it was. I guess people were more showed and worried
that this might be possible at the time.

When Malindy Sings

Paul Laurence Dunbar

3/15/21

More vernacular. Kind of boring, doesn’t seem much point to it.

An Ante-Bellum Sermon

Paul Laurence Dunbar

3/15/21

This one is also in vernacular, but the poem itself is better. God wants no man to be a slave.

We Wear the Mask

Paul Laurence Dunbar

3/15/21

Just because “black people se happy” doesn’t mean they are. It doesn’t mean race relations
are good.

Sympathy

Paul Laurence Dunbar

3/15/21

Same themes as before. The caged bird does not sing because it is satisfied.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Paul Laurence Dunbar

3/15/21

She wrote a book that started a war that freed the slaves. I wonder if she thought that would
happen, that she thought her book would have the impact it had, in the specific way it did.
Did she think her book would be more famous for its impact than it’s quality?

Fredrick Douglass

Paul Laurence Dunbar

3/15/21

This seems to be a eulogy for Douglass (it was published several years later). It was not as
good as Stowe’s.

The Problem of Old Harjo

John M Oskison
3/15/21

A man wants to convert to Christianity, but already has two wives. I feel like this was already
solved in the bible. I’m pretty sure Paul said some stuff like you have to live up to your
previous commitments before you joined the church. He should be allowed to join as is.
There is another wrinkle. One of the women doesn’t want him to join the church for fear
that it will ruin the church’s purity. This is more of a Johannine idea than a Pauline one.
Johannine Christianity deals with the church as a whole set up in opposition to the rest of
society. Paul also said that if certain things make other members of the church
uncomfortable, it should be stopped. I think he can stay where he is, converted to
Christianity, but not a member of a church. Or! He could just find a different church.

The Law of Life

Jack London

3/16/21

Not very good. It is just some racists view of Indian life.

The Inducement to Invest

The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

John Maynard Keynes

3/16/21

Men are not reasonable in their inducement to invest. They also sometimes invest too much
and sometimes too little. The solution: government. He can be a little snarky at times.

To Build a Fire

Jack London

3/16/21

It’s about a guy making a fire. It is very cold. Then a dog shows up, then he tries to kill the
dog. This is an awful story. It’s not awful in a good way, I do not recommend it.

Impressions of an Indian Childhood

Zitkala-Ša
3/17/21

This is also boring, but at least its not racist. I don’t like impressionism as much as
expressionism.

The School Days of an Indian Girl

Zitkala-Ša

3/20/21

This is sort of like that one about the girl learning Sanskrit. I think that one was better.

The Soft-Hearted Sioux

Zitkala-Ša

3/21/21

I don’t get it. Is she for Christianity or agin’ it?

Why I am a Pagan

Zitkala-Ša

3/21/21

She does not like dogmatic religions. She prefers to enjoy the beauty of nature.

Chapter IX

The Jungle

Upton Sinclair

3/21/21

This was written by a socialist, but it is one of the great success stories of capitalism. He was
able to use the capitalistic systems to change things. I doubt he would have been able to
effect any change if this happened under a socialist government.

Dick’s Early History

Ragged Dick: or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks

Horatio Alger

3/21/21

The young immigrant is basically Tom Sawyer, but Frank misleads him. He becomes
convinced that Tom Sawyerishness is not American. Instead, being an accountant is
American.

The Gospel of Wealth

Andrew Carnegie

Abridged in the Norton Anthology of American Literature

3/21/21

“Much better this great irregularity than universal squalor.” Capitalism is great, because
capitalists do great things with their money.

The Significance of the Frontier in American History

Fredrick Jackson Turner

Abridged in the Norton Anthology of American Literature

3/23/21

How did he get this right so soon after the frontier closed? The frontier provided a release
valve that allowed the American economy to continue to grow and prevent social unrest from
reaching a boiling point. It also means that the difference from America’s present and its
mythologized past is impossible to reconcile. “So long as free land exists, the opportunity
for competency exists.” Competency is the key word here. Before the end of the frontier
closed, America was the land of opportunity for anyone who was competent. Now one must
be exceptional to take advantage of the opportunity America has to offer. Now, American
culture does not come naturally, we have to work to live up to American ideals.

American Ideals

Theodore Roosevelt

Abridged in The Norton Anthology of American Literature

3/23/21

The immigration debate is very much the same as it is today. Teddy says some things that
are now liberal and some that are now conservative about the topic, but all opinions that are
held now were held then by someone. He thinks anyone can come to this country they just
have to become American. “Americanism is a question of spirit, conviction, and purpose,
not of creed or birthplace.” Interesting that its not a creed. I have heard many people say
Americanism is a creed, but Teddy rejects that.

The Strenuous Life

Theodore Roosevelt

Abridged in The Norton Anthology of American Literature

3/23/21

Hard work build character. It is also fun.

The Cosmic Symphony

The Elegant Universe

Brian Greene

3/24/21

I’m still not convinced that string theory is real. What is reality, by the way? Strings vibrate
in several dimensions. He speaks a bit of testable predictions. I feel like any testable
prediction could be explained by the already proven theories of physics, because all the
theory seeks to do is reconcile the already existing theories. He nearly cops to that in the
end.

The Future American

Charles W Chesnutt

Abridged in the Norton Anthology of American Literature

3/24/21

In the future all American races will mix. We will need to get over some social issues first.

Twenty Years at Hull-House

Jane Addams

Abridged in the Norton Anthology of American Literature

3/26/21

There is a tension when the children of immigrants start to Americanize.

Democracy versus the Melting Pot

Horace Kellen

Abridged in the Norton Anthology of American Literature

3/28/21

Her view is mostly a European melting pot. It is mostly positive. Whether it all works out
depends on if the upper classes want it to happen.

Of Systems of Moral Philosophy

The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Adam Smith

4/1/21

Again, this is mostly a rehash of the things he has said before. He still says it in his very
unscientific way. It is so bizarre to read that sort of thing nowadays. He just says things
that feel true, then moves on from there. The biggest concrete problem with this is that it is
susceptible to cultural influences. Being embarrassed by praise is only a British quality. See,
that’s the sort of things he says, without proof. Anyway, He provides no evidence that the
things he says are true even in Britain, and doubly fails to prove that these are universal
qualities.

Money-Wages and Prices

The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

John Maynard Keynes

4/5/21
People need to make more money. It’ll do a lot more good than harm. Rich people won’t
like it because it will cause a reduction on their return on investment, but screw ‘em.

First Temple Literature

The Norton Anthology of Judaism

4/8/21

The bible is very well written. I still say Genesis isn’t that well written, neither is Exodus and
some of the other more famous ones with the popular stories. There was a bizarre bit that
I have absolutely no memory of in Genesis, where Judah sleeps with his daughter-in-law,
thinking she was a whore. I think there was a part of Ancient Near Eastern courtship protocol
that I never internalized. The prophets are the ones that are very good. Maybe it was
because it was highly abridged, but they were a real ride to read through. Even if it was just
a bunch of people saying be nice over and over.

String Theory and the Fabric of Spacetime

The Elegant Universe

Brian Greene

4/16/19

George and Gracie are making fewer and fewer appearances. This section was more about
relaying the stories of the people who made recent discoveries in string theory (including the
Hawking one) while not going into as much detail explaining it to us. It introduces an
introduces an interesting idea, which is the idea that the universe is the only way it could be.

Second Temple Literature

The Norton Anthology of Jewish Literature

4/20/21

I always suspected that Job didn’t sin at all and “didn’t sin with his lips” was just there for
scansion. In this translation it says “Job did not sin nor did he cast reproach on God.” This
is a lot of apocalyptic stuff and a lot of were the good guy, us 7. Everyone else is going to
die, die and go to hell. That bad stuff is mostly stuff that didn’t make it into the bible. They
were starting to analyze biblical literature, foreshadowing some of Augustine’s stuff.
“Everything pertaining to conduct permitted us towards there creatures and toward beasts
has been set out symbolically. Thus the cloven hoof, that is the separation of the claws of
the hoof, is a sign of the setting apart each of our actions for good.”
Introduction

Theory of Heat

Joseph Fourier

4/20/21

This is easier to read than Faraday, but not as fun as Lavoisier. It is mostly common sense,
heat flows from hot places to cold places. It moves continuously, it can only affect the space
right next to it. It takes time. He formalizes some equations and expands it to multiple
dimensions.

Short Notes Suggested by the General Theory

The General Theory of Employment Interest and Money

John Maynard Keynes

4/25/21

Employment is much, much more important than the balance of trade. Over-investment
(therefore a labor shortage) is not the cause of economic busts. “It would be absurd to assert
of the United States in 1929 the existence of over-investment in the strictest sense.”

Unification in the Twenty-First Century

The Elegant Universe

Brian Greene

4/26/21

Maybe the universe if fundamentally incomprehensible. This goes back to what I was saying
earlier about maybe space is just turbulent at small scales. I haven’t been convinced of string
theory, even if it does explain stuff, that does not make it true unless its proven.

Chapter 2

Theory of Heat

Joseph Fourier
4/29/21

This chapter shows a bunch of equations for different shapes and different heat distributions.
It is backed up by experiment. All objects seem to be surrounded by an infinite cold reservoir,
which seems to be analogous to the infinitely massive wall in mechanics.