contrivances
Balancing the ledger of books for the year, looking ahead. Forecasting. Looking back, the past year was a busy one for reading, and I made some headway on some of my reading ‘projects’, although calling them that perhaps honors them with too much coherence – ‘themes’ might be a better choice. 1 I usually think of them as ‘things’. Just reading things, you know?
This year, I hope to continue ambling around Spinoza (including Maimonides and more Descartes), as well as reading up a bit more on Burton and melancholy. I finally started on that global history of the Napoleonic Wars, mostly as background to Marx, but also so I can finally get back on track with Tolstoy (my poor spreadsheet of his works in chronological order has been gathering dust). Not that a knowledge of history is essential for reading historical fiction, but it adds a certain something. 2 Who knows, I might even go so far as to finally finish working my way through Montaigne – except I don’t want to be done with the essays, but would rather they went on forever. Well, there are always other translations and, failing that, the original. Perhaps I might manage to read another novel or two, but too monumental an ambition at this point in the year can but lead to ruin or disappointment or both. Time will tell.
- ‘Constellations’ if one is being precious.[↩]
- Even if it is only a half-knowing condescension on the part of the reader.[↩]