Ah, the balm of perspective

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OK, maybe I'm overreacting, but uh... since, on my side of the pond, the ideal of democracy seems to be at the very least in a serious state of sputterment -- and since I like old books anyway -- can youse recommend some "oh don't worry, things were generally pretty much ALWAYS this fucked, and somehow civilisation, in one form or another, muddled through" literature to help me quit feeling sorry for myself? At least I'm not living through the Black Plague, right?

NOTE: If you were about to jump in with a self-righteous YOU COULD BE LIVING IN IRAQ RIGHT NOW!!!! type statement, please. I know. It's pretty obvious. The prospect of being gouged with a flat income tax to pay for bombing babies is nothing compared to the prospect of having your baby bombed. Uh huh. Just gimme book suggestions while I can still buy such luxury goods. Er, and pardon my failure to keep it strictly to books queries. It's been a sad week.

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Sunday, 7 November 2004 23:20 (twenty-one years ago)

The Grapes of Wrath

― the apex of nadirs (Rock Hardy), Monday, 8 November 2004 00:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Thanks, but I've read it -- and I was thinking more along the lines of REALLY old -- and non-U.S., as the economic conditions described in the Grapes of Wrath may in fact have fairly direct links to the current situation here. BIIIIIG perspective! I want to hear the echoes! Any good 100 years' war lit, f'rinstance? Fall o' Rome?

(Anyone who suggests Jean Auel: hey, quit reading my Shameful Masturbation Secrets Diary!)

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Monday, 8 November 2004 01:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Anything about the red scare, union busting, old-time political bosses, etc. does a good job of reminding me that American politics have long been a disgusting and dirty business and may have even gotten better for a time before getting this bad again.

― Hurting (Hurting), Monday, 8 November 2004 05:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Fall o' Rome?

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is a good book. Make sure, if you read an abridged version, to get one with the footnotes.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 8 November 2004 07:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Things Can Only Get Better: Eighteen Miserable Years in the Life of a Labour Supporter, 1979-1997

I don't like this write at all, so it probably isn't a very good book, but it has a happy ending... kind of.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Monday, 8 November 2004 08:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Things Can Only Get Better: Eighteen Miserable Years in the Life of a Labour Supporter, 1979-1997

I don't like this writer at all, so it probably isn't a very good book, but it has a happy ending... kind of.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Monday, 8 November 2004 08:17 (twenty-one years ago)

whoops.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Monday, 8 November 2004 08:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Picture This by Joseph Heller.

― Fred (Fred), Monday, 8 November 2004 11:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Picture This by Blondie.

― MikeyG (MikeyG), Monday, 8 November 2004 13:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Ann S, I would not dream of jumping in with the kind of comment that you suggest.

A book in which some things go wrong is Hamlet.

― the bellefox, Monday, 8 November 2004 16:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Ann, As another American who is appalled at the course my country's on and hoping that the Bill of Rights will survive the sanctimonious power grab of the religious freaks now in control of the government, I'm looking for the same kind of reading material that you are.

Tops on my current list is a new book out by Geoffrey Stone, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, called Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime. It looks at the ways that free speech has been stifled since the inception of the United States, and concludes that the First Amendment always bounces back stronger than before. Here's hoping the guy knows what he's talking about.

I would think Gibbon would be a good choice, as well as Montaigne's essays.

Of course you could also go the escapist route. In the same order with the First Amendment book, I also purchased a new edition of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales.

― Gail S, Monday, 8 November 2004 17:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Simplicius Simplisimus by Grimmelshausen. (I think I spelled that right.) It takes place during the Hundred Years War. Or, if that is too remote, try reading Darkness at Noon by Koestler.

Or reread Gulliver's Travels (but beware of getting an expurgated edition intended for children) or A Modest Proposal or Candide.

Then there's the literature of the Great Famine in Ireland. Or Long Day's Journey Into Night by Celine.

― Aimless (Aimless), Monday, 8 November 2004 18:00 (twenty-one years ago)

You guys are great, snif.

I'm actually thinking of going to school and finishing my undergraduate degree... but in Classics instead of French. Get first-hand accounts of how this has happened before.

snif... hate to use great literature as Kleenex, but there's a quote posted behind my toilet saying that to acquire the habit of reading is to build yourself a shelter from most of the miseries of life.

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Monday, 8 November 2004 21:20 (twenty-one years ago)

I like Brecht's donkey saying 'Even I must understand'.

― the bellefox, Tuesday, 9 November 2004 13:50 (twenty-one years ago)

but there's a quote posted behind my toilet saying that to acquire the habit of reading is to build yourself a shelter from most of the miseries of life. That would explain my mundane but supremely happy life. Thank you.

― Rabin the Cat (Rabin the Cat), Friday, 12 November 2004 05:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Don't thank me, thank all the dead writers who built that raft! Sigh. (Sound of me snuggling up to my nice fat copy of the letters of Kingsley Amis; sound of my inner cynic howling in pain like a Wicked Witch with a house on her head...)

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Friday, 12 November 2004 18:30 (twenty-one years ago)

That last PF post is very.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Sunday, 14 November 2004 05:06 (twenty-one years ago)

I was also going to suggest Candide. The last PF post made me reach for the Brecht, and in doing so I found the Frisch, who reminded me that humans have always had the potential to be venal, gullible and unpleasant.

Titus Andronicus maybe?

― Matt (Matt), Sunday, 14 November 2004 12:02 (twenty-one years ago)

It is true, about the donkey - I think.

Didn't he also have a brick with 'TRUTH IS CONCRETE' written on it?

― the bellefox, Tuesday, 16 November 2004 18:37 (twenty-one years ago)

>>>>(Anyone who suggests Jean Auel: hey, quit reading my Shameful Masturbation Secrets Diary!)

-- Ann Sterzinger (asterzinge...), November 8th, 2004.

I'd like to have a look at that diary.

― Frank Marcopolos, Wednesday, 17 November 2004 19:11 (twenty-one years ago)

It's got pictures, Frankie baby -- well worth the price of admission (22.95 hardcover, $400 signed). I think you posted that on the wrong thread, but we all love a non sequitur.

AAAAANYway, I was thinking -- I've read and adored Candide, but know shamefully little about Voltaire's life and times. I can tell the satire itself is brilliantissimo despite my own history-ignorance, (pardon the Germanism) but can anybody recommend a good historical-biographical companion volume?

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Thursday, 18 November 2004 20:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Aw shit, I'm such a dumbass I forgot that the Jean Auel non sequitur on this thread was originally mine!

(laughing at self very hard)

Frank gets a free copy.

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Thursday, 18 November 2004 22:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Be still my heart. There could be no better holiday gift.

― Frank Marcopolos, Friday, 19 November 2004 15:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Erasmus, In Praise of Folly.
Grotius, On Just War

(just buy any dutch humanist from the 17th Century you can get yr hands on...all of them, now--or whitman)

― anthony, Saturday, 20 November 2004 10:42 (twenty-one years ago)

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